Socialism  and 
The  Law 


The  Basis  and  Practice 
of  Modern  Legal  Pro- 
cedure and  its  Relation 
to  the  Working   Class 


By  George  Allan  England,  A.  M. 


"Laws  grind  the  poor  and 

rich  men  rule  the  lan>.  " 

—GOLDSMITH 


Published  by 

THE  LEGAL  DEPARTMENT  OF 
THE  APPEAL  TO  REASON 


Fort  Scott,  Kansas 


£*^£Ki 


m  9  ■ 


Pamphlet  Collection 
Duke  University  Library 


Socialism  and 
The  Law 


The  Basis  and  Practice 
of  Modern  Legal  Pro- 
cedure and  its  Relation 
to    the    Working    Class 


By  George  Allan  England,  A.  M. 

Price  SSc 


"Laws  grind  the  poor  and 
rich  men  rule  the  law." 


-GOLDSMITH 


COPYRIGHTED 

SEPTEMBER,  1913 

— BY— 

Legal  Department 
Appeal  to  Reason 


MONITOR  BOG.  A  PTG.  CO. 
FORT  SCOTT,  KAS. 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

In  approaching,  from  a  Socialist  standpoint,  the  con- 
sideration of  the  enactment  and  administration  of  law, 
the  fundamental  requisite  is  to  disabuse  our  minds  of 
all  conventional  and  long-established  concepts  regard- 
ing its  sanctity,  inviolability,  even-balanced  impartial- 
ity and  universal  application  to  every  class  and  condi- 
tion of  mankind.  The  hoary  maxim  that  "All  men 
stand  equal  before  the  law"  must  be  immediately  dis- 
carded as  useless  and  mischievous  rubbish;  and,  in- 
stead of  fine-spun  theories  and  Utopian  dreams,  we 
must  grapple  with  stern  realities,  cold  facts  and  un- 
shakable even  though  disconcerting  conclusions. 

Instead  of  copy-book  aphorisms  and  pleasing  though 
inaccurate  concepts,  the  seeker  after  truth  must  face 
once  for  all  the  situation  as  it  really  exists  today  and 
has  always  existed,  ever  since  classes  were  formed  in 
society  and  laws  were  formulated  by  masters  to  con- 
trol slaves — a  situation  thus  well  summed  up :  "Law 
is  the  will  of  the  master  class,  designed  to  keep  the 
masses  in  subjection," 

Socialists  contend,  and  back  their  contention  with 
an  overwhelming  mass  of  facts,  that  society  is  com- 
posed of  classes,  always  in  more  or  less  open 
conflict,  and  that  the  law  is  used  by  the 
master  class  as  its  most  powerful  weapon  in 
maintaining  its  rule  and  in  checkmating  any  move  on 
the  part  of  the  subject  class  to  assume  control  of  af- 
fairs economic  or  political.    Whether  under  despotism, 


a  limited  monarchy  or  a  republic,  the  same  factors  are 
perpetually  at  work,  the  same  forces  constantly  con- 
tending. The  setting  of  the  battle  varies,  true,  in  dif- 
ferent lands;  and  its  accessories,  so  to  speak,  are  modi- 
fied under  various  forms  of  government;  but  always 
and  everywhere,  at  last  analysis,  we  find  the  same  es- 
sential struggle  going  on,  and  always — if  we  observe 
the  facts  of  life,  unbiased  by  preconceived  notions  of 
"eternal  justice"  and  "equal  rights  for  all," — we  see 
the  legal  machinery  operating  in  the  interests  of  the 
master-class.  Law  is  a  sword,  its  handle  always  in  the 
grip  of  Capital,  its  point  perpetually  directed  toward 
the  worker's  breast. 

Some  Cases  In  Point. 

Enough,  for  the  present,  of  generalizations.  Let 
us  examine  a  few  of  the  causes  celebres  that  have  re- 
echoed through  the  courts  of  our  land  and  found  their 
reflexes  in  decisions  directly  affecting,  first  or  last, 
every  man,  woman  and  child  within  its  borders.  Let 
us  analyze  some  of  these  cases,  sound  their  motives 
lay  bare  the  springs  of  action  that  have  controlled  "the 
gowned  and  black-robed  puppets  of  bench  and  bar." 
Then,  perhaps,  we  shall  possess  some  data  to  guide  us 
in  deciding  whether  or  not  the  Socialist  interpretation 
of  law  as  a  class-instrument  be  correct  or  otherwise. 

If  we  consider  with  a  critical  eye  the  record  of  the 
Supreme  Court  in  some  of  its  more  important  decisions 
regarding  the  relative  importance  of  property  and  hu- 
man life,  that  court  will  not  seem  elevated  above  the 


ordinary  level  of  mankind  in  virtue  and  intelligence. 

It  is  not  possible  for  us  of  the  present  commercial 
times  to  conceive  of  the  storm  of  indignation  which 
broke  loose  when  that  court  (or  rather  John  Marshall, 
for  he  was  the  court)  first  declared  an  act  of  Congress 
unconstitutional  and  void.  Unfortunately,  the  decision 
in  this  first  case,  Marbury  vs.  Madison,  was  purely 
negative — the  refusal  to  grant  a  mandamus — and  there 
was  nothing  for  President  Jefferson  or  Congress  to  re- 
sist. But  the  claim  had  been  made,  by  the  court,  of 
the  right  to  exercise  the  veto  power  and  the  precedent 
had  been  established.  Nothing  since  the  Alien  and 
Sedition  laws  had  so  stirred  the  country.  Everywhere, 
except  in  monarchico-federalist  circles,  a  great  wave 
of  revulsion  rolled  over  the  country.  Learned  judges 
pronounced  the  decision  usurpation;  state  legislatures 
took  the  matter  in  hand  to  see  what  could  be  done  to 
curb  the  unbridled  audacity  of  the  courts;  John  Ran- 
dolph submitted  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
providing  that,  "the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  and 
all  other  courts  of  the  United  States  shall  be  removed 
by  the  President  on  the  joint  address  of  both  houses 
of  Congress." 

In  1807-1808,  motions  were  made  in  both  branch- 
es of  Congress  to  amend  the  Constitution  so  that  all 
United  States  judges  should  hold  office  for  a  term  of 
years,  and  should  be  removed  by  the  President  on  ad- 
dress by  two-thirds  of  both  houses.  This  proposition, 
though  lost,  was  supported  by  the  legislatures  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  Vermont,  by  the  House  of  Delegates  of 

3 


Virginia   and  one  branch   of  the  legislature   of  Ten- 
nessee. 

In  1831  a  final  struggle  was  made  in  Congress  to 
change  the  tenure  of  federal  judges  from  life  to  terms 
of  years.  The  attempt  failed;  but  the  measure  had  61 
supporters  in  the  house. 

Today,  a  corrupted  press  and  a  servile  population 
bare  the  head  and  bend  the  knee  before  this  court  as 
if  in  the  presence  of  the  annointed  of  God  on  earth ! 
Yet  the  Constitution,  which  defines  specifically  the 
power  of  this  court,  neither  grants,  implies  or  contem- 
plates the  exercise  of  the  tremendous  power  of  declar- 
ing null  and  void  an  act  of  Congress. 

On  March  6,  1857,  the  famous  Dred  Scott  de- 
cision was  handed  down  by  the  Supreme  Court.  The 
court  held — two  of  the  nine  judges  dissenting — that 
Scott,  being  a  slave,  and  hence,  not  a  citizen,  was  not 
entitled  to  bring  an  action  in  a  United  States  court. 
They  went  further,  and  held  that,  the  territories  being' 
equally  open  to  all  people,  and  slaves  being  recognized 
as  property  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
the  slave-owner  had  the  same  right  to  take  his  slave 
there  and  be  protected  in  his  ownership  as  the  man 
from  the  free  state  had  to  take  his  horse  and  be  pro- 
tected in  his  possession;  that  Congress  could  not  de- 
prive the  slave  owner  of  his  right;  and  that,  therefore, 
the  Missouri  Compromise  was  unconstitutional  and 
void.  This  decision  meant,  in  effect,  thatj — contrary 
to  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  Constitution — the 
black  man  had  no  rights  that  the  white  man  was  bound 


to  respect.  Here,  clearly,  property-rights  were  de- 
fended by  the  highest  legal  tribunal  in  the  land,  at  the 
expense  of  human  rights,  in  a  judgment  that  sustained 
every  claim  made  by  the  South.  The  North  was  stun- 
ned.    The  reversal  of  the  decision  was  effected  only 

at  a  cost  of  a  million  lives  and  an  incalculable  hemor- 
rhage of  treasure. 

Great  lawyers,  like  Fessenden,  were  scathing  in 
their  criticisms  of  the  court.  In  a  thousand  pulpits 
prayers  were  offered  up  to  save  the  country  from  the 
iniquitous  decisions  of  the  judges.  The  press  in  the 
North  was  loaded  with  denunciations.  And  the  peo- 
ple of  the  free  states,  those  in  the  mills  and  shops  and 
on  the  farms,  joined  in  the  chorus.  All  that  was  said 
by  the  representative  anti-slavery  men  was  only  a  put- 
ting into  articulate  speech  and  language  of  what  they 
felt  profoundly  in  their  minds  and  hearts.  The  pres- 
ent generation  has  been  educated  differently,  thanks  to 
the  press,  the  pulpit,  the  politicians,  the  universities, 
the  colleges,  private  and  public  schools  and  current 
popular  literature.  In  accord  with  this  teaching  they 
grovel  on  their  bellies  in  the  dust  before  a  court  like  a 
Thibetan  before  the  Dalai  Lama. 

Chattel  slavery  is  dead  and  forever  gone;  but  the 
Supreme  Court,  true  to  its  instincts  and  traditions  has 
now  become  the  citadel  of  the  consolidated  power  of 
capital. 

On  the  9th  of  March,  1857,  Hannibal  Hamlin— 
afterwards  Vice-President  with  Mr.  Lincoln — follow- 
ing the  path  blazed  out  by  Mr.  Seward,  and  speaking 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  remarked  as  follows : 


"We  make  the  laws;  they  interpret  them;  but  it  is 
not  for  them  to  tell  us  what  are  the  limits  within  which 
we  shall  confine  ourselves  in  our  action.  Of  all  des- 
potisms upon  earth,  the  despotism  of  a  judiciary  is 
the  worst." 

The  South  stood  by  the  Supreme  Court  in  those 
days  because  it  was  the  ally  of  slavery;  the  money 
power  stands  by  it  today,  because  it  is  the  ally  of 
capital. 

It  was  just  half  a  century  from  the  time  Jefferson 
began  his  attacks  on  the  Supreme  Court,  to  the  revival 
of  these  attacks,  in  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Another 
half  a  century  has  elapsed  since  that  decision  to  the 
present  time.  But  outside  of  Socialist  ranks,  we  hear 
no  protests  today  when  the  usurpations  of  the  Supreme 
Court  have  a  wider  scope  and  deeper  import  than  ever 
before.  We  have  lost  our  breed  of  noble  blood.  The 
attorneys  of  Standard  Oil,  of  the  radroads,  and  of 
the  trusts,  have  taken  their  places.  Both  houses  of 
Congress  are  as  dumb  as  oxen.  And  the  people  ?  They 
stand  as  quiet  and  submissive  as  sheep  under  the  hands 
of  their  shearers. 

Still  Further  Cases. 

The  class-character  of  our  legal  procedure  and  ex- 
ecutive machinery  was  obvious  in  the  breaking  of  the 
famous  A.  R.  U.  strike  in  Chicago,  during  1894.  Not 
only  was  Eugene  V.  Debs  enjoined  by  Judge  Grosscup 
from  exercising  his  constitutional  right  of  free  speech, 
and  jailed  for  6  months  at  Woodstock  for  daring  to  de- 


fend  that  right,  but  Cleveland  in  an  arbitrary  and  bru- 
tal manner,  over  the  protests  of  Mayor  Harrison  of 
Chicago  and  Governor  Altgeld  of  Illinois,  threw  in 
the  federal  troops  to  break  the  strike.  Pullman  and 
his  associates  were  handled  with  kid  gloves.  They 
represented  Capital. 

During  Cleveland's  second  administration,  a  single 
judge,  Shiras,  reversed  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  nullified  the  income-tax  law.  The  "guess" 
of  this  one  man — a  guess  no  better  than  yours  or  mine 
— saved  uncounted  millions  of  dollars  to  the  propertied 
class  in  America  and  laid  additional  and  grievous  bur- 
dens on  some  75  millions  of  plain  people.  The 
income  tax  had  been  imposed  by  the  will  of  the  people 
as  a  whole,  acting  through  Congress,  the  Senate  and 
the  presidential  signature.  Shiras  said  "No,"  and  the 
collective  will  of  America  collapsed  like  a  bursted 
bubble. 

The  people  of  Colorado,  in  1903,  by  a  majority  of 
over  46,000  declared  for  the  eight-hour  law  for  labor 
in  the  mines.  The  elected  representatives  of  the  state 
refused  to  obey  that  mandate  and  enact  that  law.    - 

In  Oregon,  the  people,  by  an  overwhelming 
popular  vote  declared  for  direct  legislation;  but 
the  state  courts  declared  that  such  legislation  could  not 
be  written  on  the  statute  books. 

The  famous  Moyer-Haywood  case  possessed  prime 
importance  largely  because  the  Supreme  Court,  with 
only  Justice  McKenna  dissenting,  declared  in  effect  that 
kidnapping  of  labor  leaders  was  constitutional,  using 
these  words : 


"Looking  first  at  what  was  alleged  to  have  occur- 
red in  Colorado  touching  the  arrest  of  the  petitionee 
and  his  deportation  from  that  state,  we  do  not  per- 
ceive that  anything  done  there,  however  hastily  or  in- 
considerately done,  can  be  adjudged  to  be  in  violation 
of  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  the  United  States. 

"Even  if  it  be  true  that  the  arrest  and  deportation 
of  Pettibone,  Moyer  and  Haywood  from  Colorado 
was  by  fraud  and  connivance,  in  which  the  governme.it 
of  Colorado  was  a  party,  this  does  not  make  out  a 
case  of  violation  of  the  right  of  the  appellants  under 
the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States." 

To  test  the  validity  of  this  grave  dictum,  if  applied 
not  to  members  of  the  working  class  but  to  a  capitalist, 
Fred  D.  Warren,  editor  of  the  "Appeal  to  Reason," 
offered  a  reward  of  $1000  for  the  kidnapping  of  Ex- 
Governor  Taylor,  of  Kentucky,  and  his  return  to  che 
Kentucky  authorities.  Taylor  was  a  fugitive  from  jus- 
tice, hiding  in  Indiana,  and  wanted  on  a  murder  charge. 
A  standing  reward  of  $100,000  for  his  return  was 
kept  in  force  by  the  State  of  Kentucky.  Despite  these 
facts,  Warren  was  arrested  and  prosecuted  on  a  charge 
of  sending  incendiary,  threatening  and  defamatory  mat- 
ter through  the  mails. 

The  Famous  "Warren  Case.5' 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  test-cases  ever  tried  in 
America  resulted.  Its  details  would  consume  space 
far  beyond  our  present  limits.  Be  it  remembered,  how- 
ever, that  after  incredible  delays,  subterfuges  and  an- 
noyances, Warren  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  six 
months  in  jail  and  to  pay  a  fine  of  $1500. 

8 


During  the  trial  at  Fort  Scott,  before  Judge 
Pollock,  and  later  at  the  appeal  in  St.  Paul, 
before  Judge  Hook,  Warren  enunciated  more 
clearly  than  has  ever  elsewhere  been  done,  the  class- 
character  of  the  law  and  the  courts  as  administered  by 
and  for  Capitalism.  Through  the  columns  of  the  "Ap- 
peal" and  by  means  of  reprints  in  hundreds  of  other 
papers,  he  was  able  to  spread  widely  a  true  understand- 
ing of  modern  legal  procedure.  A  few  quotations  are 
essential. 

During  the  first  speech  he  said: 

"Would  the  Supreme  Court  hold  to  its  opinion  that 
kidnapping  was  not  a  crime  if  the- victim  were  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Republican  party  and  a' representative  of  the 
capitalist  class? 

"My  arrest  and  conviction  is  the  first  instance  on 
record  where  a  man  was  prosecuted  for  attempting  to 
bring  to  the  bar  of  justice  an  indicted  fugitive  charged 
with  the  crime  of  murder. 

"There  must  be  some  reason  why  I  alone  of  the 
thousands  of  men  who,  according  to  the  rule  of  this 
court  and  the  opinion  of  the  district  attorney  and  his 
assistant,  have  committed  substantially  the  same  act, 
should  be  singled  out  and  marked  for  prosecution. 

"The  reason  is  not  hard  to  find.  Society  today  is 
divided  into  two  classes.  On  the  one  side  we  find  the 
work  people — men,  women  and  children  who  have  no 
means  of  obtaining  a  livelihood  but  by  their  hard  labor. 
On  the  other  hand  we  find  a  relatively  small  group  of 
men  who  own  the  land,  and  the  tools  which  these  peo- 
ple must  have  access  to  if  they  are  to  live.  It  is  the 
primary  if  not  the  sole  purpose  of  the  men  who  own 


this  productive  property  to  obtain  as  large  profits  as 
possible,  while  on  the  other  hand  the  work  people 
strive  constantly  to  increase  their  wages.  This  creates 
a  class  conflict. 

"The  slave  master  built  up  a  civil  and  political 
system  which  protected  his  right  of  property  in  the 
bodies  of  his  slaves  and  the  wealth  they  produced. 
Prior  to  1860,  the  laws  enacted  by  Congress  and  by 
most  of  the  several  states,  backed  by  the  decisions  of 
federal  and  state  courts,  had  for  their  object  the  pro- 
tection of  the  slave  master  in  his  right  of  ownership 
of  men,  women  and  children.  The  man  who  dared 
raise  his  voice  in  protest  against  the  exploitation  of  the 
black  man  was  branded  as  a  traitor  to  his  country.  If 
he  attempted  to  speak  he  was  thrown  into  jail,  and  if 
he  attempted  to  print  a  newspaper  voicing  his  senti- 
ments his  press  was  destroyed  and  he  was  mobbed  and 
murdered. 

"What  was  true  in  the  two  revolutionary  periods 
which  marked  the  disappearance  of  a  political  system 
based  on  kingcraft  and  a  political  system  based  on  chat- 
tel slavery  is  true  today. 

"The  men  and  the  newspapers  that  have  espoused 
the  cause  of  men,  women  and  children  who  work  in 
the  fields,  factories  and  mines  of  this  nation  are  mark- 
ed for  persecution,  as  were  the  Revolutionary  and 
Abolition  editors  before  them. 

"The  courts  today,  as  prior  to  1860,  are  with  the 
owning  and  ruling  class.  Daily  this  fact  is  becoming 
more  apparent.  One  has  only  to  refer  to  the  long  list 
of  decisions  in  which  the  interests  of  labor  and  capital 
are  opposed,  to  verify  this  statement.  The  black-list 
has  been  legalized  and  the  boycott  outlawed.  The 
injunction  has  been  used  with  telling  effect  in  labor 

10 


controversies  to  terrorize  and  crush  the  men  who  work, 
while  it  has  proved  ineffective  and  of  no  avail  when 
directed  against  great  capitalist  interests. 

"Our  colonist  forefathers,  imbued  with  the  high 
ideals  embodied  in  their  immortal  Declaration,  shoul- 
dered their  guns  and  shot  to  death  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  and  then  the  cunning  enemies  of  democracy  rais- 
ed in  its  stead  the  Supreme  Court,  with  its  many  fed- 
eral arms  reaching  out  into  all  the  states  of  the  Union. 

"The  Supreme  Court  has  become  in  fact  the  reign- 
ing monarch  of  the  American  people.  No  measure  of 
relief  demanded  by  voters  of  this  nation  enacted  into 
law  by  their  elected  representatives  and  signed  by  the 
President  may  become  operative  without  its  judicial 
sanction.  At  the  command  of  the  lords  of  privilege 
any  obnoxious  law  is  promptly  declared  unconstitu- 
tional. 

"The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  to- 
day more  real  power  over  the  people  than  is  vested  in 
any  monarch  of  the  old  world. 

"The  late  Senator  Hanna  boasted  that  the  courts 
are  maintained  to  buttress  property  rights. 

"President  Taft  in  his  Hot  Springs  (Va.)  speech 
expressed  a  decided  opinion  upon  the  same  question  in 
referring  to  the  inability  of  the  poor  to  cope  in  the 
courts  with  men  of  wealth.  With  expressions  like 
these  from  men  of  prominence,  do  you  wonder  that 
there  is  a  growing  distrust  on  the  part  of  the  poor 
people  of  this  nation  that  the  courts  are  against  them? 

"In  the  western  district  of  New  York,  of  thirty 
cases  decided  in  favor  of  injured  employees  twenty- 
eight  were  reversed  in  favor  of  the  master  class  by 
the  higher  courts.  United  States  District  Attorney 
Sims  of  Chicago  was  waging  a  vigorous  fight  against 

11 


the  white  slave  drivers,  and  when  victory  was  almost 
within  his  grasp  his  hand  was  paralyzed  by  a  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  which  virtually  put  an  end  to 
the  prosecution  of  that  unspeakable  infamy.  There 
are  property  interests  involved  in  the  wholesale  de- 
bauchery of  young  girls,  and  these  property  interests 
must  be  safeguarded  at  whatever  cost.  As  for  the 
girls,  they  are  the  daughters  of  the  working  class  and 
in  point  of  value  are  not  to  be  compared  to  property. 

"Our  modern  system  of  jurisprudence  is  a  survival 
of  mediaeval  times,  when  judges  presided  by  right  of 
ownership  of  lands  and  castles,  and  it  will  require  an- 
other political  revolution  similar  to  that  of  1776  and 
that  of  1860  to  abolish  this  bulwark  of  special  privi- 
lege and  capitalist  exploitation. 

"In  feudal  slavery  the  courts  sustained  the  feudal 
lords,  in  chattel  slavery  they  protected  the  slave  own- 
ers, and  in  wage  slavery  they  defend  the  industrial 
masters. 

"Whoever  protests  for  the  sake  of  justice  or  in 
the  name  of  the  future  is  an  enemy  of  society  and  is 
persecuted  or  put  to  death. 

"In  one  of  the  most  eloquent  characterizations  of 
history  Charles  Sumner,  tracing  the  march  of  the  cen- 
turies, pointed  out  that  the  most  infamous  crimes 
against  the  liberty  and  progress  of  the  human  race 
had  been  sanctioned  by  the  so-called  courts  of  justice. 

"This  case  is  a  mere  incident  in  the  mighty  strug- 
gle of  the  masses  for  emancipation.  Slowly,  painfully, 
proceeds  the  struggle  of  man  against  the  power  of 
Mammon.  The  past  is  written  in  tears  and  blood. 
The  future  is  dim  and  unknown,  but  the  final  outcome 
of  this  world-wide  struggle  is  not  in  doubt.  Freedom 
will  conquer  slavery,  truth  will  prevail  over  error,  jus- 

12 


tice  will  triumph  over  injustice,  the  light  will  vanquish 
the  darkness,  and  humanity,  disenthralled,  will  rise 
resplendent  in  the  glory  of  universal  brotherhood." 

Warren's  Second  Speech. 

In  Warren's  St.  Paul  speech  he  followed  up  this 
damning  arraignment  of  class-courts  and  class-rule  by 
still  more  specific  charges.  It  was  not  Warren,  but 
capitalist  legal  procedure,  which  stood  accused  in  the 
dock.     Said  Warren: 

"The  question  involved  in  this  case  is  whether 
there  is  one  law  for  the  workingman  and  another  law 
for  the  rich  employer.  The  Supreme  Court's  decision 
in  the  famous  kidnapping  conspiracy  in  ColoracSo  and 
the  action  of  high  government  and  state  officials  in 
protecting  a  fugitive  Republican  politician,  charged 
with  murder,  lends  color  to  my  contention  that  there 
is  one  interpretation  of  the  law  for  the  poor  and  an- 
other for  the  rich.  The  action  of  the  Governor 
of  New  Jersey  in  refusing  to  issue  requisition  papers 
for  Armour,  the  Chicago  meat  packer,  who  was  charg- 
ed by  the  New  Jersey  prosecutors  with  violating  the 
anti-trust  laws  of  that  state  is  a  convincing  argument 
that  there  is  one  law  for  the  poor  man  and  one  for  the 
rich. 

"By  environment,  training  and  economic  interests, 
the  judges  who  compose  this  court  are  opposed  to  me. 
You  can  no  more  impartially  consider  the  questions 
involved  in  this  case  than  could  the  judges  appointed 
by  the  English  king  to  consider  impartially  the  ques- 
tions which  arose  between  that  monarch  and  his  Amer- 
ican subjects. 

13 


"In  all  controversies  that  arose  between  the  master 
and  his  slave  prior  to  the  rebellion  of  1861,  the  fed- 
eral courts  made  their  decisions  conform  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  masters.  It  was  from  the  slave  owners  that 
they  derived  their  powers  and  held  their  positions. 
No  man  openly  antagonistic  to  the  slave  power  could 
hold  a  position  on  the  federal  bench. 

"An  examination  of  the  decisions  of  this  court — 
and  your  decisions  are  similar  to  those  of  all  other 
federal  courts — wherein  the  interests  of  the  working- 
man  conflict  with  the  interests  of  the  employer,  is  am- 
ple proof  of  the  class  character  of  the  federal  judic- 
iary. 

"As  a  militant  member  of  the  working  class  I 
frankly  confess  that  I  expect  nothing  from  this  court. 
A  court  of  justice,  so-called,  which  turns  away  a  man- 
gled working  child  empty-handed,  in  defense  of  capi- 
talist class  property  against  working  class  life  and  limb, 
is  not  apt  to  look  with  favor  upon  one  in  revolt  against 
such  shocking  inhumanity  and  the  system  responsible 
for  it. 

"I  know  that  this  is  the  settled  policy  of  this  court. 
I  understand  why  its  decisions  are  in  the  interest  or 
the  employer  and  against  the  working  man  and  work- 
ing woman. 

"You  are  serving  those  to  whom  you  are  indebted 
for  your  position  and  responsible  for  your  power.  I 
am  simply  trying  to  show  to  the  working  class  of  the 
world,  which  embraces  a  great  majority  of  the  popu- 
lation, the  character  of  the  federal  court  to  which  must 
be  submitted  their  liberties  and  their  lives.  The  fed- 
eral court  under  capitalist  misrule  is  essentially  capi- 
talistic.in  its  sympathies,  its  interests  and  its  decisions. 

14 


"In  this  important  work  of  educating  the  working 
class  as  to  the  true  character  of  the  courts  you  are  help- 
ing me.  It  was  the  Dred  Scott  decision  that  hastened 
the  overthrow  of  chattel  slavery,  and,  as  history  re- 
peats itself,  we  may  confidently  expect  that  the  de- 
cision of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  now  famous  kid- 
napping conspiracy,  backed  by  the  federal  court's  de- 
cisions in  all  other  labor  cases,  will  precipitate  the 
downfall  of  wage  slavery.  When  the  toilers  of  the 
mill,  factory,  mine  and  farm  once  understand  the  true 
situation,  they  will  realize  that  there  can  be  no  relief 
from  judicial  despotism  until  they  use  the  power  latent 
in  themselves  to  abolish  the  present  iniquitous  system, 
based  upon  the  legalized  robbery  of  the  nation's  toil- 
ers and  producers,  IN  WHICH  THE  COURTS 
ARE  MERE  CREATURES  OF  CAPITALIST 
CLASS  RULE  AND  INSTRUMENTS  OF  WORK- 
ING CLASS  SUBJECTION.  These  workingmen  will 
one  day  learn  to  choose  their  own'  judges,  and  while, 
these  judges  may  know  little  of  the  intricacies  of  law 
and  the  chicanery  of  technicality,  they  have  an  inherent 
sense  of  justice  and  they  may  be  depended  upon  to 
serve  their  brothers. 

"I  shall  consider  it  the  proudest  day  of  my  life 
when  I  enter  the  jail  at  Fort  Scott,  imprisoned  because 
of  my  defense  of  the  poor  and  oppressed.  You  will 
by  that  act  increase  my  power  a  thousandfold  and  carry 
my  message  to  the  toiling  millions  from  se.a  to  sea. 
Gladly  will  I  make  this  small  sacrifice  in  a  cause  to 
which  I  would  willingly  give  my  life." 

'  Without  doubt,  Capitalist  law  has  never  before  or 
since  faced  'so  damning  an  arraignment  as  this  of  War- 
ren's.    Mask  and  pretense  were  stripped  clean  away. 

15 


The  naked  machinery  of  class-rule  was  exposed  to  the 
eyes  of  the  world.     Goldsmith's  famous  verse, 

"Laws  grind  the  poor,  and  rich  men  rule  the  law" 
was  amply  proved.  And  from  the  bench  and  robe 
were  plucked  dignity  and  power  which  can  never  be 
regained. 

Additional  Cases  Of  Class  Law. 

The  only  difficulty  in  the  way  of  citing  cases  in 
point  is  the  bewildering  array  from  which  to  choose. 
Any  complete  list  of  decisions  "Made  in  Dollardom" 
would  fill  volumes.  I  mention  a  few,  at  random.  Let 
them  serve  as  typical,  in  our  consideration  of  "Social- 
ism and  the  Law." 

The  massacre  of  the  "Molly  Maguires,"  in  the 
Pennsylvania  coal  fields,  in  1877,  when  seventeen  min- 
ers were  hanged  by  packed  juries  and  on  perjured  evi- 
dence. 

The  Haymarket  case  in  Chicago,  when  in  1887  four 
labor  leaders,  since  proved  innocent,  were  hanged  by 
similar  means,  their  real  crime  having  been  agitation 
in  favor  of  the  eight-hour  day. 

The  Latimer  and  Homestead  massacres,  in  1897, 
when  Sheriff  Martin  and  102  deputies  shot  down  the 
miners  wholesale,  and  escaped  scot-free,  under  the  pro- 
tecting wing  of  capitalist  law. 

The  innumerable  and  incredible  brutalities  and  out- 
rages practiced  by  courts,  judges  and  military  power 
in  the  labor-wars  at  Cripple  Creek,  Col.,  in  Idaho  and 
at  Goldfield,  Nev.,  all  aided  by  anarchistic  mobs  of 
"respectable  business  men"  under  the  aegis  of  Law. 

16 


The  numerous  peonage  cases  throughout  the  South, 
where  Law  and  Capital  have  played  into  each  other's 
hands  to  bind  men  into  slavery  and,  if  rebellious,  to 
torture  and  murder  them  without  compunction. 

The  shameless  cases  in  which  Mexican,  Russian 
and  other  political  refugees  have  been  arrested,  im- 
prisoned and  punished  by  our  courts  and,  save  for  the 
prompt  and  vigorous  protests  of  the  working  class, 
would  have  been  returned  to  the  clutches  of  their  vin- 
dictive masters. 

The  innumerable  trust  deals  and  steals  perpetrated 
on  the  American  people,  by  and  through  the  forms  of 
law. 

The  mob-rule,  under  legal  forms,  in  Tampa,  Fla., 
1910,  where  every  constitutional  right  of  the  working- 
class  was  violated. 

During  the  Cigar  Makers'  strike,  in  Tampa,  a  prac- 
tical state  of  martial  law  existed.  Hundreds  of  citi- 
zens were  sworn  in  as  special  policemen,  the  Labor 
Temple  of  Tampa  and  the  union  hall  were  closed; 
safes  containing  the  union  recordls  were  seized  by  order 
of  the  court,  were  taken  to  the  court  house  and  held 
for  investigation,  and  two  strikers  were  lynched. 

The  many  legalized  murders  at  Lawrence,  Pater- 
son  and  other  strike  centers,  and,  together  with  these, 
the  infamous  sentencing  of  Pat  Quinlan  to  the  New 
Jersey  penitentiary,  on  absolutely  perjured  evidence. 

The  assassination  of  free  speech,  by  court  injunc- 
tions, in  dozens  and  scores  of  our  cities,  including  San 
Diego,  Seattle,  Little  Falls,  Fresno  and  Spokane. 

17 


The  setting  aside  of  the  famous  "Big  Fine"  of 
$29,000,000  imposed  by  Judge  K.  M.  Landis  on  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  and  reversed  by  Judge  Peter 
S.  Grosscup. 

The  defeat,  by  Judge  Pollock's  injunctions,  of  the 
Kaw  River  Drainage  Board's  attempts  to  widen  the 
river  channel  and  obviate  floods  costing  hundreds  of 
lives  and  millions  of  dollars  in  aggregate  small  prop- 
erties, at  the  expense  of  "made"  land  held  by  the  huge 
packing-houses   at   Kansas   City. 

The  overriding,  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  West 
Virginia,  of  the  Constitutions  of  that  state  and  of  the 
United  States,  in  the  interests  of  the  mine-owners,  and 
the  endless  and  incredible  brutalities  practiced  on  the 
miners,  by  "constituted  authority,"  contrary  to  law. 
This  West  Virginia  case,  being  still  fresh  in  the  public 
eye,  deserves  further  mention. 

Class    Administration    of    Law,    With    a 
Vengeance. 

The  following  provisions  of  the  United  States  Con- 
stitution have  all  been  violated  by  officials  sworn  to 
uphold  that  Constitution  in  West  Virginia. 

No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital  or 
other  infamous  crime  unless  on  a  presentment  or  indict- 
ment of  a  grand  jury,  except  in  cases  arising  in  the  land 
or  naval  forces,  or  in  the  militia,  when  in  actual  ser- 
vice, in  time  of  war  or  public  danger  .  .  .  nor  be  de- 
prived of  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due  process 
of  law.— Amendment  V. 


18 


In  all  criminal  prosecutions,  the  accused  shall  en- 
joy the  right  to  a  speedy  and  public  trial,  by  an  impar- 
tial jury  of  the  state  and  district  wherein  the  crime 
shall  have  been  committed.    .  .  .    Amendment  VI. 

The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall 
not  be  suspended,  unless  when  in  cases  of  rebellion  or 
invasion  the  public  safety  may  require  it.- — Article  1, 
section  IX,  paragraph  2. 

The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  per- 
sons, house,  papers,  and  effects,  against  unreasonable 
searches  and  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated.  .  .  .  Amend- 
ment IV. 

.  .  .  The  right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms 
shall  not  be  infringed. — Amendment  XL 

.  .  .  Nor  shall  any  state  deprive  any  person  of  life, 
liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  nor 
deny  to  any  person  within  its  jurisdiction  the  equal 
protection  of  the  laws. — Amendment  XIV. 

Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except 
as  a  Punishment  for  crime  whereof  the  party  shall 
have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  exist  within  the  United 
States,  or  anv  place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction. — 
Amendment  XIII. 

The  following  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of 
West  Virginia  were  all  likewise  violated,  in  dealing 
with  the  miners,  by  officials  sworn  to  uphold  that  con- 
stitution: 

The  provisions  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  of  this  state,  are  operative  alike  in  a  period 
of  war  as  in  time  of  peace,  and  any  departure  there- 
from, or  violation  thereof  under  the  plea  of  necessity, 
or  any  other  plea,  is  subsersive  of  good  government, 

19 


and  tends  to  anarchy  and  despotism. — Article  I,  sec- 
tion 3. 

The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall 
not  be  suspended.  No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer 
for  treason,  felony,  or  other  crime,  not  cognizable  by 
a  justice,  unless  on  presentation  or  indictment  by  a 
grand  jury. — Article  III,  section  4. 

No  person  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or 
property,  without  due  process  of  law,  and  the  judg- 
ment of  his  peers. — Article  III,  section  10. 

The  military  shall  be  subordinate  to  the  civil  pow- 
er; and  no  citizen,  unless  engaged  in  the  military  ser- 
vice of  the  state,  shall  be  tried  or  punished  by  any 
military  court,  for  any  offense  that  is  cognizable  by  the 
civil  courts  of  this  state. — Article  III,  section  5. 

Trials  of  crimes,  and  of  misdemeanors,  unless  here- 
in otherwise  provided,  shall  be  by  a  jury  of  twelve 
men,  public,  without  unreasonable  delay,  and  in  the 
county  where  the  alleged  offense  was  committed.  .  .  . 
Article  III,  section  14. 

The  courts  of  this  state  shall  be  open,  and  every 
person,  for  an  injury  done  to  him,  in  his  person,  prop- 
erty or  reputation,  shall  have  remedy  by  due  course  of 
law;  and  justice  shall  be  administered  without  sale,  de- 
nial or  delay. — Article  II,  section  17. 

Such  is  a  partial  list  of  the  legal  malfeasances  of 
the  ruling  class  in  this  one  case.  After  all,  "What's 
the  Constitution  between  friends?" 

To  such  as  still  retain  their  old-fashioned  respect 
for  and  admiration  of  the  Supreme  Court,  as  a  body 
pure  in  motive,  lofty  in  deliberation  and  impersonal 
in  decision,  I  now  recommend  a  careful  reading  of 

20 


Gdstave    Myers'    "History   of   the   Supreme   Court." 
With  which  recommendation,  I  pass  on. 

Some  Individual  Cases. 

Leaving  now,  though  with  its  outlines  hardly  as 
yet  sketched  in,  the  larger  aspects  of  the  case,  where 
masses  of  men  and  large  properties  have,  in  general, 
been  involved,  let  us  examine  a  few  of  the  many  thou- 
sands of  cases  where  working-class  individuals,  suffer- 
ing personal  wrong  and  injury,  have  applied  in  vain 
to  capitalist  legal  machinery  for  redress  and  compen- 
sation. I  cite  perhaps  a  thousandth  of  one  per  cent, 
of  the  cases  on  record,  all  essentially  alike  in  this,  that 
no  deserving  trust  or  capitalist  ever  has  gone  empty- 
handed  from  a  court  of  law. 

Flossie  May  Clements  was  a  17-year-old  girl, 
working  some  time  ago  in  the  "Model  Laundry"  in 
Washington,  D.  C,  for  a  pittance  to  support  herself 
and  widowed  mother.  Flossie  worked  at  a  mangle. 
She  fed  this  monstrous  machine  from  early  morning 
till  late  at  night,  day  after  day,  week  in  and  week  out. 

One  day  Flossie's  right  hand  was  caught  in  the 
heavy  machinery.  She  was  hurried  to  a  hospital.  The 
doctors  found  that  amputation  was  necessary.  A  few 
weeks  later  the  girl  was  discharged  cured,  but  abso- 
lutely helpless. 


NOTE: — For  a  partial  list  of  court  decisions  fav- 
orable to  Capital  and  against  Labor,  see  Appendix. 

21 


The  young  victim  brought  suit  against  the  com- 
pany for  $20,000. 

The  case  came  to  trial.  When  the  girl  was  called 
to  the  witness  stand  she  was  asked  by  her  attorney  to 
exhibit  her  injury.  She  trembled,  drew  back  the  sleeve 
from  her  mangled  arm  and  fell  fainting. 

She  was  carried  out  of  the  court  room.  The  trial 
closed.  Justice  Barnard  adjusted  his  glasses,  cleared 
his  throat,  and  began  his  charge  to  the  jury. 

"The  plaintiff,"  said  the  learned  judge,  "was  fa- 
miliar with  the  operation  and  the  dangers  of  the  man- 
gle. According  to  law  she  assumed  the  risk  incidental 
to  the  operation  of  this  machine,  and  the  defendant  is 
therefore  exempt  from  all  liability.  You  are  instruct- 
ed to  bring  in  a  verdict  for  the  defendant." 

The  jury  obeyed.  The  Law  was  vindicated.  And 
Flossie?     What  became  of  her? 

One  thing  is  certain.  Had  that  judge  been  a  So- 
cialist, the  ancient  and  barbaric  doctrine  of  "assumed 
risk,"  now  said  to  be  held  only  in  Turkey  and  the 
United  States,  would  never  have  been  applied,  and 
justice  would  have  been  done. 

Another  case,  also  of  a  factory  girl,  this  time  from 
New  Jersey.  Her  arm  was  caught  in  the  machinery 
and  torn  from  the  socket.  A  jury  awarded  her  $17,- 
500.  The  corporation  appealed,  and  the  Supreme 
Court  reversed  the  verdict.  The  frightfully  mutilated 
girl  was  turned  out,  penniless  and  helpless,  on  the 
streets. 


22 


'On  what  ground  did  the  august  tribunal  reverse 
this  verdict?  Here  it  is,  as  given  by  the  Philadelphia 
Evening  Telegram,  Jan.  3,   1911: 

"A  photograph  had  been  introduced  in  the  trial. 
This  photograph  was  the  picture  of  the  plaintiff  in  her 
confirmation  dress,  and  the  learned  judge  decided  that 
it  was  irrelevant.  Being  irrelevant,  it  should  not  have 
been  admitted,  and  being  admitted  it  nullified  all  the 
proceedings  of  the  court  bearing  upon  the  negligence 
and  responsibility  of  the  company." 

Indeed,  "a  Daniel  come  to  judgment!" 
Albert  M.  Dawson,  a  brakeman  on  the  Rock  Is- 
land, was  killed  by  reason  of  a  defective  hand-hold  on 
a  freight  car.  The  hand-hold  had  been  screwed  into 
rotten  wood.  It  pulled  out.  Dawson  fell  under  the 
wheels  and  was  cut  in  two.  The  judge  in  the  case  — 
he  traveled  on  a  pass — instructed  the  jury  to  return  a 
verdict  for  the  railroad  and  against  the  widow;  and 
this  verdict  was  sustained  by  the  higher  courts.  "As- 
sumed risk,"  again.  Ninety  thousand  railroad  em- 
ployees are  killed  or  injured  every  year  on  American 
railways.  Every  railroad  should  ask  itself  with  all  ser- 
iousness:   "Have  we  a  little  judge  in  our  house?" 

A  Few  More,  Out  Of  Thousands. 

The  case  of  Mary  Miller  attracted  wide  attention. 
In  1910  she  lost  her  fingers,  while  operating  dangerous 
machinery  in  the  plant  of  the  St.  Louis  Cordage  Co. 
A  jury  gave  her  substantial  damages,  but  this  decision 
was  reversed  by  the  U.  S.  Court  of  Appeals — though 
just  how  the  case  ever  got  to  that  august  tribunal,  no- 
body knows  but  the  attorneys.     Judge  Sanborn  ruled 


23 


that  the  plaintiff  was  not  entitled  to  damages  because 
"the  danger  was  apparent,  and  the  girl  could  have  quit 
her  job."  The  verdict  of  twelve  citizens  had  no 
weight  with  this  distinguished  jurist.  He  heard  "his 
master's  voice,"  and  came  to  heel  with  a  neat  "assum- 
ed risk"  decision,  safe,  sane  and  strictly  legal. 

On  Nov.  9,  1888,  sixty- four  miners  were  instantly 
killed  by  an  explosion  in  a  mine  at  Frontenac,  Kansas. 
A  large  number  of  others  were  wounded.  The  mine 
company  was  patently  responsible,  through  having  neg- 
lected to  provide  the  necessary  safeguards.  Seventy- 
five  damage-suits  were  entered.  These  were  fought 
for  many  years,  taken  to  higher  courts  and  continued 
till  the  plaintiffs  were  worn  out.  The  final  results  to 
the  miners'  families  were  practically  nil.  Let  two  ex- 
amples, from  this  case,  serve  for  all. 

James  Wilson,  aged  18,  was  killed.  His  father 
sued  for  $10,000.  A  jury  awarded  $5,000.  From 
court  to  court  the  company  carried  the  case,  till  finally 
it  was  able  to  compromise  for  a  sum  that  did  not  even 
begin  to  cover  the  plaintiff's  expenses. 

Thomas  F.  Jones  was  injured  and  sued  for  $15,- 
000.  He  was  awarded  $2,000.  The  Company  de- 
layed payment,  till  finally  the  victim  died,  in  1891. 
The  widow  continued  the  fight,  but  the  case  was  dis- 
missed in  1896.  The  plaintiff  received  not  a  red  cent. 
Score  one  more  victory  for  capitalist  law  administered 
by  capitalist-minded  judges ! 

24 


A  Contrast — and  the  Reason. 

Frank  Lane  was  a  miner  working  in  the  district 
near  Girard,  Kansas.  In  1910,  while  employed  by  the 
Sheridan  Coal  Company,  he  sustained  injuries,  due  to 
defective  equipment,  rendering  him  a  cripple  for  life. 
The  fact  of  judicial  partiality  for  the  master-class  and 
against  the  working-class  having  been  established  by 
an  almost  unbroken  series  of  thousands  of  cases,  War- 
ren, editor  of  the  "Appeal,"  and  J.  I.  Sheppard,  a 
Socialist  attorney  of-  Fort  Scott,  Kansas,  determined 
to  make  this  a  test  case.  Their  idea  was  to  establish 
a  precedent  which  would  enable  them  to  win  in  other 
cases  that  the  "Appeal"  legal  defense  department 
intended  to  prosecute.  Action  was  taken  to  secure 
justice  for  this  one  of  the  six  hundred  thousand  work- 
ers annually  killed  or  injured  in  the  United  States. 
The  complete  story  of  this  case,  the  dilatory  and 
evasive  tactics  of  entrenched  capital  sheltered  behind 
class  courts,  cannot  be  told  here,  but  after  numerous 
subterfuges  and  delays,  the  Company  was  forced  to 
settle  for  $11,000,  and  partial  justice  was  done — f>o 
far  as  money  can  ever  atone  for  a  crushed,  broken, 
paralyzed  body. 

The  object-lesson  was  made  clear,  of  wnat  could 
be  accomplished  by  determined  Socialists,  on  the  legal 
battle-field,  in  conflict  with  the  fossilized  and  hide- 
bound courts  of  capitalism.  The  corporation  that 
mutilated  Lane  sought  to  throw  him  headlong  on  the 
junk-pile  of  broken  and  forgotten  things.     Mammon 


25 


has  no  mercy,  and  the  courts  are  Mammon's  hand- 
maids. Upon  the  shapeless  wrecks  that  once  were 
men,  capitalist  courts  solemnly  placed  the  great  seal  of 
approval,  and  from  their  imperial  decree  there  is  no 
appeal.  None,  save  when  Socialists  stand  forth  to 
battle. 

In  the  region  near  Girard,  some  16,000  miners 
toil.  Previous  to  the  Frank  Lane  case,  hundreds  of 
suits  were  beaten  by  the  coal  companies.  Now,  thanks' 
to  Socialist  activities,  most  of  these  cases  are  won  by 
the  injured  miners  or  their  heirs.  The  same  results 
could  be  accomplished  everywhere,  if  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  Socialist  lawyers  were  in  the  field.' 

Every  year,  for  lack  of  Socialist  lawyers,  courts 
and  judges,  vast  armies  of  industrial  cripples  are  left 
to  their  unhappy  fate.  There  is  no  pension  for  these 
wounded  workers. 

The  doors  of  practically  all  our  courts  are  closed 
against  them;  the  judges  deaf  to  their  appeal. 

And  this  monstrous  social  crime  passes  for  civiliza- 
tion !  These  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  women 
and  children  crushed  and  torn  in  the  machinery  of 
production  to  feed  and  clothe  and  shelter  society,  are 
themselves,  in  their  tragic  helplessness,  starved  to 
death  by  that  same  society. 

Our  Labor-Baiting  Courts. 

Not  only  do  our  capitalist  courts,  as  at  present 
constituted,   form  the  strongest  bulwark  of  property- 

26 


rights  as  against  human  rights,  but  they  aggressively 
exceed  the  furthest  extension  of  their  alleged  rights 
in  baiting  and  persecuting  Labor,  all  for  the  greater 
glory  and  power  of  Capital.  Injunctions  and  sentences 
for  contempt  are  their  chosen  weapons,  in  this  unequal 
battle.  And  Labor,  untaught,  unversed,  unskilled  in 
the  complex  minutiae  of  the  law,  lies  supine  beneath 
this  judicial  tyranny,  or,  in  blind  fury,  thrashes  out  to 
right  and  left  with  violence,  which — like  the  unavailing 
struggles  of  fabled  Antaeus— only  serves  to  reduce  it 
to  still  further  impotence. 

I  cite  a  case  in  point,  one  of  thousands.  In  Janu- 
ary, 1911,  Judge  Greeley  W.  Whitford  sentenced  six- 
teen striking  miners  to  jail  for  a  year  for  alleged  vio- 
lation of  an  injunction  issued  by  him  at  request  of  the 
Northern  Coal  &  Coke  Company  of  Denver,  Col. 
These  miners  were  not  even  in  the  jurisdiction  of  his 
court.  He  issued  the  injunction,  put  them  in  jail  and 
from  his  decision  there  was  no  appeal.  The  miners 
had  violated  no  law  and  had  committed  no  crime. 
They  were  neither  tried  nor  found  guilty.  The  cor- 
poration ordered  this  judge  to  jail  them  to  break  their 
strike.  Sixteen  innocent  workmen  were  accordingly 
imprisoned  for  one  year,  without  trial,  by  the  decree  of 
a  judge,  issued  at  the  command  of  a  criminal  coal  cor- 
poration. 

In  view  of  a  fact  like  this,  which  is  only  one  of  an 
infinitude  of  similar  injunction  and  contempt  cases  that 
might  be  cited,  what,  forsooth,  becomes  of  our  boasted 
"equality  before  the  law"     How  many  plutocrats  have 

27 


been  jailed  for  a  year,  for  violating  an  injunction? 
How  many  are  even  enjoined,  at  all?  Let  Echo  an- 
swer. 

Judicial  arrogance  can  go  no  further  than  in  these 
cases,  now  growing  numerous,  wherein  the  judge — - 
making  his  own  law — sets  aside  the  constitutional 
guarantee  of  trial  by  jury,  cites  persons  for  contempt, 
tries  them  and  sentences  them,  when  he  himself  has  a 
personal  interest  in  their  conviction.  The  judges  have 
proclaimed  "We  are  higher  than  the  law  or  the  Con- 
stitution," and  all  who  question  it  are  liable  to  suffer 
grievous  consequences. 

Supreme  Arrogance  of  Our  Bench. 

Saliently  now  stands  forth  the  fact,  long  recognized 
by  Socialists  and  at  last  coming  to  be  admitted  even 
by  Old  Party  men,  that  in  no  civilized  country  on  earth 
does  any  such  arbitrary  and  dictatorial  power  exist  as 
that  actually  assumed  and  exercised  by  our  courts.  The 
President  of  the  United  States,  himself,  is  powerless 
before  the  majority  of  his  own  appointees,  the  Su- 
preme Justices;  while  Congress  is  but  a  body  of  child- 
ren who  may  play  at  "law-making"  but  who  cannot  go 
beyond  the  parental  will  of  our  nine  Czars,  with  long 
gowns  to  dignify  their  rule. 

Informed  persons  know  that  the  federal  judiciary', 
more,  if  possible,  than  the  Senate,  is  owned  by  the  rul- 
ing class  and  exists  solely  to  do  its  bidding.  Any  law 
passed  by  Congress,  antagonistic  to  the  interests  of 
the   plutocrats,    is    immediately   held   by   the    Supreme 

28 


Court  as  unconstitutional.  Any  strike  that  bids  fair 
to  win  victory  is  crushed  by  an  injunction.  Any  meas- 
ure or  movement  looking  toward  the  betterment  of  the 
masses  at  the  expense  of  the  classes  invariably  finds  its 
death  at  the  hands  of  a  federal  judge. 

Such  judges,  appointed  by  the  President  for  life, 
can  be  removed  only  by  death,  resignation  or  impeach- 
ment. Within  their  sphere  they  are  absolute ;  in  recent 
years  they  have  usurped  powers  and  assumed  a  juris- 
diction to  which  they  are  manifestly  not  entitled.  They 
stand  higher  than  all  our  law-making  bodies,  for  they 
can  declare  unconstitutional  or  deny  the  laws  after 
they  are  made.  Once  the  Supreme  Court  has  spoken, 
no  more  can  be  said.  There  can  be  no  appeal  from  n 
Supreme  Court  decision.  Thus  the  control  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  by  the  plutocracy  makes  the  plutocrats 
the  rulers  of  our  nation.  The  federal  judiciary  pos- 
sesses a  power  not  exceeded  by  that  of  any  monarch 
on  earth ;  and  this  power  is  used  exclusively  to  further 
the  interests  of  the  rich  and  to  degrade  to  greater 
depths  the  rank  and  file  of  the  working  class. 

As  men  are  formed  and  moulded  by  their  environ- 
ment, so  that  every  occupation  produces  specialized 
types  of  bodily  and  mental  modification — such  as  "min- 
er's lung,"  "housemaid's  knee,"  "clergyman's 
voice,"  "writer's  cramp"  and  the  like, — we  now  know 
and  recognize  a  special  type  of  intellect  well-described 
as  "lawyer's  brain"  or  "judge's  mind."  This  legal 
and  judicial  intellect  has  no  connection  with  the  reali- 
ties or  facts  of  life,  the  problems  of  humanity  or  such 

29 


trivialities  as  right  and  justice.  It  feeds  exclusively 
on  codes,  precedents,  objections,  exceptions,  writs  of 
error,  stays,  habeas  Corpuses,  mandamuses,  injunctions 
and'-.'nice  sharp  quillets  of  the  law."  It  was  once  most 
beautifully  summed  up  by  Ex-President  Taft  in  his  re- 
mark: "I  love  the  judges;  I  love  the  courts.  They 
are  my  ideal  on  earth,  and  typify  what  we  shall  meet 
afterward  in  heaven  under  a  just  God."  Speech  at  Po- 
catello,  Ida.,  Oct.  6,  191 1  -  He  further  voiced  this  sub- 
lime mental  attitude  in  his  speech  at  the  Waldorf-As- 
toria, January  28,  1912,  when  he  said:  "In  the  effort 
to  make  the  judiciary  responsible  to  the  whim  of  the 
people,  I  see  destruction.  The  conservative  element 
of  the  nation  must  eventually  get  together  to  prevent 
a  movement  that  would  make  the  courts  the  creatures 
of  popular  will,  and  might  make  the  decision  in  every 
case  not  in  accordance  with  the  law  but  in  accordance 
with  what  the  majority  of  the  people  thought  the  law 
should  be."     Comment  is  superfluous. 

I  suggest  the  remedy  proposed  by  Jefferson.  Let 
Socialists  operate  for  a  joint  Congressional  resolution 
declaring  that  no  court  has  any  jurisdiction  to  declare 
an  act  of  Congress  or  State  Legislature  unconstitution- 
al and  void  on  pain  of  impeachment,  conviction  and 
removal  from  office. 

A  Few  Germane  Examples  of  Common- 
sense  vs.  Legal  Sense. 

Earlier  in  this  article  I  have  already  cited  many 
instances  to  bear  out  the  contention  of  class  rule  by 

30 


class  courts.     Nor  are  others  lacking!     They  press  up- 
on our  attention  from  every  side. 

,-.  The  ease  with  which  the  United,  States  Steel  Cor- 
poration, in  1910,  was  enabled  through  the  connivance 
of  President  Roosevelt  and  Attorney  General  Bona- 
part  to  absorb,  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Co.  con- 
stituting a  steal  of  over  nine  hundred  million  dollars, 
illustrates  the  facility  with  which  property  rights  can 
work  their  will  in  this  country. 

When  the  American  Tobacco  Co.,  in  and  about 
1907,  formed  a  combination  to  lower  beyond  the  sub- 
sistance  point  the  purchasing  price  of  tobacco,  and  the 
farmers  united  to  pool  their  crops  in  an  endeavor  to 
force  prices  to  a  living  standard,  all  the  powers  of  law, 
courts  and  injunctions,  backed  by  military  force,  were 
called  out  against  the  working  class. 

The  famous  Standard  Oil  case,  when  taken  to  the 
Supreme  Court,  resulted  in  the  most  amazing  legal  de- 
velopment of  all — the  famous,  or  rather,  infamous, 
promulgation  of  the  doctrine  that  the  Court  itself  can, 
by  interpolating  words  into  the  written  law,  modify 
that  law,  thereby  actively  assuming  legislative  func- 
tions. 

Justice  Harlan  in  a  dissenting  opinion,  May  15, 
1911,  said: 

"If  I  have  not  misapprehended  the  opinion,  the 
court  has  not  only  read  into  the  act  of  Congress  words 
which  were  not  to  be  found  there,  but  has  thereby  done 
that  which  it  adjudged  in  1896  and  in  1898,  could  not 
be  done  without  violating  the  Constitution. 

31 


"But  now  the  court,  in  accordance  with  what  it 
denominates  'the  rule  of  reason,'  in  effect  inserts  in 
the  act  the  word  'undue,'  and  makes  Congress  say 
what  it  d*id  not  say,  what  it  plainly  did  not  intend  to 
say  and  what  since  the  passage  of  the  act  it  has  ex- 
plicitely  refused  to  say. 

"It  has  steadily  refused  to  amend  the  act  so  as  to 
allow  a  restraint  of  interstate  commerce  that  was  reas- 
onable or  due.  In  short,  the  court  now  by  judicial 
legislation  in  effect  amends  an  act  of  Congress  relating 
to  a  subject  over  which  that  department  of  the  govern- 
ment has  exclusive  cognizance." 

He  still  further  said,  in  effect: 

"Labor  comes  here  and  asks  you  to  put  something 
into  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law  that  Congress  did  not 
put  in.  Organized  dbllars  speak  for  human  greed. 
You  grant  the  petition  and  upon  the  same  day,  almost 
in  the  same  breath,  you  deny  the  identical  request  of 
labor.  You  have  made  the  judge  your  legislator,  and 
the  legislator  is  against  men  but  in  favor  of  money." 

Federal  Courts! — Department  of  Justice,  forsooth ! 
Justice!  "Most  excellent  fooling!"  Every  one  of  the 
judges  on  the  federal  bench  has  been  appointed 
through  the  influence  of  corporate  wealth.  Nearly  all 
of  them  were  previously  in  the  service  of  the  trusts 
and  corporations  as  lawyers,  and  were  placed  upon  the 
bench  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  could  render 
their  masters  more  efficient  service  in  that  capacity. 
Every  man  of  intellect  knows  and  admits  this  fact.  The 
reverence  most  people  entertain  for  our  capitalist 
courts  is  sadly  out  of  place  among  a  so-called  free  peo- 
ple.    Such  reverence  is  affected  by  the  master-class  for 

32 


prudential  reasons,  while  upon  the  part  of  the  masses 
it  is  born  of  ignorance  concerning  the  judges  and  what 
is  going  on  behind  the  scenes.  The  fictitious  solemnity 
and  dignity  of  the  judges  deceive  no  Socialist,  for  he 
can  penetrate  the  mask. 

Says  Allan  L.  Benson,  in  "Pearson's"  for  Decem- 
ber,  1911: 

"Federal  judges  make  our  laws,  in  that  they  write 
all  of  them;  in  that  they  judge  all  of  them  after  Con- 
gress has  written  them.  No  law  that  is  brought  into 
court  can  be  administered  until  the  federal  judges  have 
passed  upon  it,  if  any  interested  party  chooses  to  have 
it  so  passed  upon;  until  they  have  read  words  in  or 
words  out,  as  they  like.  Perhaps  the  federal  judges 
kill  it  by  declaring  it  unconstitutional. 

"This  is  not  rule  by  the  people.  It  is  rule  by  the 
judges.  How  can  rule  by  the  people  be  established  if 
judges  who  are  above  the  people  are  at  liberty  to  do 
with  the  law  as  they  please?  This  is  a  crucial  ques- 
tion. Either  we  believe  in  rule  by  the  people,  or  we 
do  not.  If  we  believe  in  rule  by  the  people,  we  do  not 
believe  in  rule  by  judges.  And,  if  we  do  not  believe 
in  rule  by  judges  we  do  not  believe  in  an  'independent 
judiciary.'  " 

Said  the  "Appeal,"  in  its  issue  for  March  9,  1912: 
"It  is  in  the  federal  court  that  the  workingman  is 
always  beaten  and  the  corporation  always  victorious. 
The  one  greatest  obstruction  in  the  path  of  the  na- 
tion's progress  is  the  federal  court.  It  is  the  last  re- 
maining bulwark  of  decadent  Capitalism.  .  .  .  The 
American  people,  whether  they  will  or  not,  will  sooner 
or  later  be  compelled  to  grapple  with  it  .  .  .  This  auto- 
cratic, irresponsible  institution,  whose  judges  are  nam- 

33 


ed  by  corporate  wealth  with  a  life-tenure  of  office,  is 
beyond  and  above  the  reach  of  the  people  ...  is  the 
very  essence  of  despotism." 

Implacably  opposed  to  despotism  in  any  form,  and 
fully  aware  of  the  truth  of  the  dictum  that  the  law  is 
a  net  that  catches  only  the  little  fish,  while  the  big 
break  through,  Socialists  have  given  considerable  atten- 
tion to  this  form  of  tyranny.  They  have  exposed  not 
t  only  the  character  of  the  law  and  the  courts  as  a  whole, 
but  that,  also,  of  the  individuals  who,  graced  by  the 
black  robe,  are  commonly  supposed  to  belong  to  a  su- 
perior class  of  beings,  far  removed  from  the  contam- 
inating touch  of  criticism.  Judges,  at  their  touch,  have 
crumbled  to  common  clay.  The  "Appeal  to  Reason," 
alone,  has  unseated  several  from  the  federal  bench. 

As  a  sequel  to  its  judicial  housecleaning,  the  "Ap- 
peal" initiated  a  movement  for  the  popular  elec- 
tion and  recall  of  the  judiciary,  which  has  since  been 
written  into  the  Socialist  platform  and  become  widely 
popular.  "Socialism  and  the  Law"  is  noi,  after  all,  so 
abstract  a  question  as  at  first  blush  might  appear. 

On  the  22nd  of  October,  1910,  the  "Appeal,"  un- 
der the  head  of  "The  Treacherous  Record  of  Con- 
gress Exposed!,"  printed  a  complete  analysis  by  Louis 
Kopelin,  of  the  action  of  all  Congressmen  then  in  ses- 
sion, on  the  following  issues:  Eight  Hour  Law,  Dick 
Military  Law,  Anti-Injunction  Law,  Sixteen  hour  day 
in  railroad  service,  Child  Labor  Laws,  Employer's 
Liability  bill  and  several  others  affecting  Labor.  The 
vote   of  each   Congressman  on  each  of  these  several 

34 


questions  was  printed,  and  by  an  overwhelming  major- 
ity the  elected  law  makers  of  the  people,  theoretically 
their  servants  and  representatives,  were  proved  to  have 
consistently  worked  and  voted  against  the  interests  of 
their  constituents. 

For  many  years  this  paper  has  kept  and  published 
a  record  of  the  current  doings  of  American  courts,  un- 
der the  heading  "Class  Courts  at  Work."  It  has  re- 
corded thousands  of  cases  of  glaring  injustice  to  the 
working  class.  This  record  is  obviously  too  long  to 
quote;  but  to  one  who,  like  myself,  has  studied  it,  it 
proves  beyond  the  peradventure  of  a  doubt  the  Social- 
ist contention  that  our  courts  are  maintained  and  "jus- 
tice" administered  solely  in  the  interests  and  for  the 
benefit  of  the  ruling  class.  I  invite  all  doubting  Thom- 
ases to  obtain  and  study  this  record,  and  then  to  affirm, 
if  they  can,  that  justice  is  free,  impartial  and  untram- 
meled  in  this  glorious  land  of  ours. 

Says  W.  J.  Ghent,  in  a  recent  issue  of  the  "Sur- 
vey*' : 

"The  'Appeal'  has  kept  up  an  energetic  and  force- 
ful campaign  against  the  judiciary  and  has  permanent- 
ly singed  many  judicial  reputations.  It  has  started  a 
movement  which  cannot  help  but  grow.  The  conduct 
of  the  judiciary  in  so  many  instances  these  last  ten 
years  has  provided  all  the  necessary  material." 

Waning  Divinity  of  the  Bench. 

As  a  result  of  all  this  irreverent  exposure  and 
analysis,  the  awful  majesty  of  our  courts  and  judges, 

3S 


like  unto  that  "divinity  which  doth  hedge  a  king,"  is 
fast  losing  ground  in  America.  The  strings  have  been 
exposed,  the  guiding  hand  of  Capital  laid  bare,  and  the 
puppet-dance  of  the  judicial  marionettes  too  clearly 
shown.  Where  none  before  dared  criticise,  now  many 
carp  and  jibe;  and  the  old-time  warnings  of  Jefferson 
are  once  more  becoming  popular.  With  pleasure  I 
quote  these  original  admonitions  of  the  "Father  of 
Democracy,"  and  follow  his  sage  opinions  with  others 
which,  now  that  Socialists  have  blazed  the  trail  and 
have  braved  the  shock  of  battle,  are  spoken  less  with 
courage  than  with  a  due  appreciation  of  the  trend  of 
events. 

Said  Jefferson,  in  various  public  utterances  and  let- 
ters to  his  friends : 

"You  seem  to  consider  the  judges  as  the  ultimate 
arbiters  of  all  constitutional  questions;  a  very  danger- 
ous doctrine,  indeed,  and  one  which  would  place  us 
under  the  despotism  of  oligarchy.  The  Constitution 
has  erected  no  such  tribunal,  knowing  that,  to  what- 
ever hands  confided,  with  the  corruption  of  time  and 
party,  its  members  would  become  despots. 

"They  have,  with  others,  the  same  passions  for 
party,  for  power,  and  the  privileges  of  their  corps. 
Their  maxim  is :  'It  is  the  business  of  a  good  judge  to 
extend  his  jurisdiction;'  and  their  power  is  the  more 
dangerous,  as  they  are  in  office  for  life,  and  not  respon- 
sible, as  the  other  functionaries  are,  to  elective  control. 

"The  great  object  of  my  fear  is  the  federal  judic- 
iary. That  body,  like  gravity,  ever  acting  with  noise- 
less foot  and  unalarming  advance,  gaining  ground  step 
by  step,  and  holding  what  it  gains,  is  engulfing  insid- 
iously the  specidl  governments  into  the  jaws  of  that 
which  feeds  them. 

36 


"The  judiciary  of  the  United  States  is  a  subtle 
corps  of  sappers  and  miners,  constantly  working  un- 
derground to  undermine  the  foundations  of  our  con- 
federated fabric.  An  opinion  is  huddled  up  in  con- 
clave, perhaps  by  a  majority  of  one,  delivered  as  if 
unanimous  and  with  the  silent  acquiescence  of  lazy  and 
timid  associates,  by  a  crafty  chief  justice  (Marshall) 
who  sophisticates  the  law  to  his  mind  by  the  turn  of 
his  own  reasoning. 

"And!  it  is  unfortunate  that  federalism  is  still  pre- 
dominant in  our  judiciary  department,  which  is  conse- 
quently in  opposition  to  the  legislative  and  executive 
branches  and  is  often  able  to  baffle  their  measures. 

"I  deem  it  indispensable  to  the  continuation  of  this 
government  that  they  (the  judges)  should  be  subjected 
to  some  practical  and  impartial  control. 

"No  veto  power,  ancient  or  modern,  ever  existed 
so  formidable  as  this  American  irresponsible  judicial 
veto/' 

All  this,  long  decades  before  the  first  injunction 
had  been  issued,  the  first  trust  formed,  the  first  great 
labor  war  fought,  the  class  struggle  became  apparent 
in  America.  Had  Jefferson  lived  today,  what,  indeed, 
would  he  have  said?  I  venture  this,  that  no  utterance 
of  the  Socialist  would  have  excelled  him  in  denuncia- 
tion, nor  any  cry  for  the  overthrow  of  our  despotic 
legal  system  been  more  bitter. 

If  we  look  upon  the  partisan  vote  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  the  Tilden-Hayes  presidential  contest;  at  the 
appointment  of  two  attorneys  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Co.,  to  that  bench,  to  give  the  Greenback 
Decision  in  favor  of  the  railroad  companies;  at  the  ma- 

37 


jor'ity  of  one  which  reversed  the  will  of  the  people  in 
the  Income  Tax  law;  at  the  same  power  of  one  man 
which  set  aside  null  and  void  the  Employer's  Liability 
Act;  at  their  restraining  injunctions  in  labor  cases, 
which  every  lawyer  knows  are  outrageous  violations 
of.  all  precedent  and  existing  law,  and  at  innumerable 
other  decisions,  and  all  in  favor  of  Mammon  and 
against  man,  we  must  concur  in  his  opinion.  Jeffer- 
son's viewpoint,  in  the  past,  exactly  coincidedl,  in  this' 
respect,  with  that  of  the  Socialists  today. 

The  Socialist  platform  declares,  in  one  of  its  im- 
portant planks,  for  "the  abolition  of  the  power  usurp- 
ed by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  to  pass 
upon  the  constitutionality  of  legislation  enacted  by  Con- 
gress." It  also  declares  for  the  abolition  of  all  federal 
courts  inferior  to  the  Supreme  Court. 

Leaving  the  Socialist  contention  for  a  moment  to 
one  side,  consider  now  some  non-Socialist  testimony. 
C.  P.  Connolly  says,  in  a  recent  number  of  "Every- 
body's Magazine" : 

"The  courts  have  been  packed  in  order  to  render 
decisions  favorable  to  certain  corporations.  Judicial 
opinions  of  our  highest  courts  have  been  written  in  the 
offices  of  the  legal  department  of  railroads  and  other 
corporations.  Corrupt  federal  judges  use  their  power 
to  loot  prosperous  concerns  to  the  financial  advantage 
of  judicial  rings.  Many  judges  feel  themselves  high 
priests,  and  sincerely  believe  that  all  criticism  of  courts 
is  unholy  and  heretical.  Many  are  political  henchmen 
with  whom  public  morals  are  a  cynical  jest.  They  have 
pared  and  twisted  the  law  for  the  protection  of  a  fav- 

38 


ored  few.  This  corruption  of  our  courts  pevdarss  ev- 
ery section  of  the  country.  It  is  becoming  more  and 
more  difficult  for  the  poor  man  to  get  a  decision  against 
a  corporation.  The  influence  of  corporation  lawyers 
over  courts  has  demoralized  the  legal  profession.  Cor- 
rupt decisions  have  crept  into  the  law  and  become  part 
of  it,  and  in  some  communities  have  poisoned  the  en- 
tire judicial  system." 

The  San  Francisco  Call,  September  13,  1909,  thus 
unburdened  itself: 

"Down  South,  the  'Atlanta  Constitution'  and  the 
'New  Orleans  Times-Democrat'  have  been  holding  a 
sort  of  symposium  of  indignation  and  reproof  concern- 
ing the  strange  quibblings  of  the  ingenious  Judge 
Gantt,  of  Missouri,  who  has  made  himself  a  figure  of 
national  derision  by  reversing  verdicts  of  criminal  con- 
victions because  of  the  missing  of  the  in  one  case  and 
a  superfluous  e  in  another.  It  is  not,  perhaps,  imperti- 
nent to  remark  that  these  reversals  came  opportunely 
to  the  rescue  of  Missouri  bribe-givers,  who,  but  for 
the  timely  interposition  of  a  'higher  up'  power,  would 
have  been  wearing  stripes  by  this  time." 

And  thus,  the  staid,  slow-moving  "Outlook" : 

"It  will  be  conceded  as  a  general  proposition  that 
lawyers  do  not  reach  the  bench  by  assiduous  study,  high 
legal  accomplishment  and  professional  training. .  Po- 
litical organizations  have  much  more  to  do  with  their 
ad/vancement  than  personal  merit.  The  spectacle  of 
the  elevation  to  the  judgeship  of  a  lawyer  known  and 
appreciated  by  the  bar  is  a  rare  one  .  .  .  In  the  main, 
the  bench  is  below  the  average." 

The  essence  of  law  was  thus  brilliantly  summed  up 
by  Carl  Snyder  in  a  recent  article  in  "Collier  s" :       > 

"Do  the  judges  know  the  law?    Answer:    The  law 

•    39 


is  what  they  think  and  they  seldom  think  alike.  Do 
the  courts  make  the  law?  Answer:  From  the  very 
beginning  of  the  republic  it  has  simply  been  a  long 
struggle  against  usurpation  by  the  courts  of  rights 
which  they  never  possessed  and  never  were  intended 
to  have." 

The  Morale  Of  Capitalist  Lawyers. 

Such  being  the  case — and  not  even  the  most  hide- 
bond  reactionary  can  deny  its  essential  truth — the  So- 
cialist necessarily  views  the  morale  of  Capitalist  courts 
and  lawyers,  and  the  codes  of  law  as  now  generally 
administered,  in  a  most  unfavorable  light.  To  him, 
one  of  the  most  desirable  features  of  Socialism  will  be 
the  purification  of  those  codes  and  the  lustration  of 
the  legal  corps.  He  believes  in  free  justice  for  all,  in 
an  orderly,  legal  and  reasonable  transformation  of  the 
present  competitive  state  into  the  future  co-operative 
state;  and  to  him,  therefore,  the  present  weltering 
chaos  of  old,  obsolete,  contradictory,  conflicting  laws, 
for  the  most  part  inane  and  stupidly  reactionary  in 
their  hampering  clutch  on  the  progress  of  humanity, 
becomes  a  thing  despicable,  and  void  of  dignity  or  rea- 
son. He  urgently  demands  its  abolition  in  favor  of  a 
sane,  simple,  concise  and  reasonable  code. 

He  sees  the  legal  profession  as  it  really  is,  an  es- 
sentially dishonest,  truckling,  greedy  struggle,  a  hair- 
splitting Tweedledum-and-Tweedledee  conflict  over 
property-rights,  in  which  human  rights  are  trampled' 
under  foot  and  lost  sight  of.    He  sees  the  modern  law- 

40 


yer  actually  training  himself  to  respect  this  travesty  of 
democracy  and  right.  He  well  knows  that  the  average 
capitalist-minded  lawyer  is  looking  forward  to  the  time 
when  he  himself  may  wield  the  autocratic  sceptre  of 
judgeship. 

Such  a  lawyer,  of  the  old  school  of  things,  learns 
to  bow  to  precedent  and  to  legal  tyranny.  He  buries 
his  head  in  the  musty  lore  of  legal  practice.  He  lives 
in  the  past  rather  than  in  the  present.  He  searches 
the  hoary  volumes  of  ancient  decisions  for  justification 
of  his  clients,  and  he  twists  and  turns  facts  to  fit  the 
obsolete  conditions  of  forgotten  generations.  He  sells 
himself  for  a  fee.  He  prostitutes  himself  to  his  client 
with  all  the  abandon  of  a  courtesan,  and  his  moral  and 
intellectual  integrity  becomes  that  of  the  street. 

No  man  can  thus  sell  himself  to  Mammon  without 
suffering  moral  and  intellectual  decay.  He  is  seldom 
if  ever  revolutionary.  True  to  his  training,  he  must 
follow  his  dusty  precedents.  No  capitalist-minded  law- 
yer has  ever  led  a  great  movement.  Watch  him  in  a 
convention ;  how  he  twists  and  turns  the  parliamentary 
procedure,  how  he  lays  traps  for  the  innocent  and  un- 
skilled delegates.  Hear  the  cunning  phrases  that  he  in- 
serts in  his  resolutions,  phrases  that  seem  innocent,  but 
which  are  saturated  with  his  poisoned  art. 

If  the  lawyers  of  ancient  days  resembled  those  of 
this  twentieth  century,  no  wonder  Christ  cried  out,  in 
anger:  "Woe  unto  you  also,  ye  lawyers;  for  ye  lade 
men  with  burdens  grievous  to  be  borne,  and  ye  your- 
selves touch  not  the  burdens  with  one  of  your  fingers." 

41 


The  Approaching  Change. 

Socialists  well  know  that  this  unjust,  chaotic  and 
criminal  system  of  legal  maladministration  cannot  much 
longer  endure.  They  understand,  with  a  clarity  of 
vision  not  to  be  deceived  by  any  specious  argument, 
that  the  impending  social  transformation  will  involve 
a  like,  even  a  greater,  metamorphosis  in  the  field  of 
law.  It  follows  that  they  now  eagerly  invite  the  law- 
yer to  a  study  of  Socialist  principles,  and  offer  him  in 
their  ranks  an  unbounded  field  of  endeavor. 

For  Socialist  lawyers  are  today  urgently  needed; 
and  as  time  passes,  will  be  still  more  essential  to  the 
Great  Change.  This  corps  of  workers  is  absolutely 
indispensable  to  the  Socialist  army,  if  victory  is  to  be 
achieved  and  held.  "The  time  is  fast  approaching 
when  Socialists  will  be  called  upon  to  make  and  ad- 
minister laws.  We  shall  have  to  change  our  judiciary 
system,  and  deal  with  our  legal  machinery.  Who  is 
going  to  do  this  work?  Shall  we  leave  this  to  the  old- 
school  lawyers?  The  class-conscious  Socialist  jealously 
guards  the  integrity  of  the  movement,  and  has  a  nerv- 
ous eye  on  the  entrance  to  our  ranks  of  the  merchant 
and  the  farmer.  But  in  his  guardianship  he  has  wholly 
overlooked  the  most  dangerous  product  of  the  capital- 
ist system — the  lawyer.  Who  was  it  that  intermingled 
the  warp  of  monarchy  with  the  woof  of  democracy  ;.n 
our  federal  constitution?  The  lawyer.  Who  has  been 
the  conservative  factor  in  all  attempts  at  corralling  the 
capitalist  class?     The   lawyer.     Whose   hands   thrust 

42 


the  knife  into  the  vitals  of  the  People's  Party?     The 
lawyer. 

Why  is  it  thus?  Because  the  legal  mind  is  moulded 
by  legal  procedure,  and  is  wholly  devoid  of  innate 
human  justice.  Whence  came  our  law?  It  is  of  two 
kinds,  statutory  and  common.  Statutory  law  is  the  pro- 
duct of  legislation,  and  as  our  legislators  for  120  years 
have  been  controlled  by  the  capitalist  class,  the  statu- 
tory law  has  been  made  for  the  protection  and  promo- 
tion of  the  interests  of  that  class.  The  common  law, 
which  makes  up  the  bulk  of  our  practice,  is  the  product 
of  court  decisions,  which  become  precedents  for  subse- 
quent courts  to  follow.  If  courts  adhered  strictly  to 
precedent,  their  decisions  might  be  governed  by  prac- 
tices 200  years  old,  and  thus  modern  capitalism  might 
often  be  embarrassed;  but  as  there  is  no  hard  and  fast 
rule  requiring  such  procedure,  judges  may  follow  pre- 
cedent or  not,  as  they  choose.  The  capitalist  class, 
therefore,  is  always  sure  of  a  favorable  decision  of 
the  court,  providing  the  court  is  chosen  by  the  capital- 
ist class,  which  is  now  everywhere  the  case.  And  it  is 
precisely  the  court  that  rules  the  land.  For  legisla- 
tures may  pass  laws,  but  as  we  have  already  adequately 
shown,  the  courts  decide  whether  or  not  such  laws  are 
constitutional  and  shall  stand. 

It  follows  that  we  need  and  urgently  must  have, 
trained  in  our  own  ranks  and  fully  class-conscious,  men 
skilled  in  legal  procedure,  to  combat  this  evil  influence, 
to  engineer  the  mighty,  yet  delicate,  transformation;  to 


43 


scout  our  advance,  checkmate  the  enemy's  moves,  and 
blaze  our  trail  through  the  dense  jungles  of  property- 
made  law.  Unless  we  know  and  understand  the  laws 
as  they  exist,  we  are  not  and  shall  not  be  able  to  take- 
successful  charge  of  the  offices  we  shall  soon  be  called 
upon  to  occupy.  On  our  ticket,  competent  men  are 
nominated  for  all  offices  save  those  requiring  a  know- 
ledge of  legal  technique.  Such  nominations  must  either 
be  left  vacant,  or  men  must  be  put  up  who  make  the 
ticket  a  jest,  because  the  electorate  well  knows  the  nom- 
inees lack  the  requisite  knowledge. 

All  these  disabilities  must  be  overcome  before  we 
can  hope  to  be  taken  seriously  as  a  political  party.  We 
cannot  succeed  as  we  should,  so  long  as  we  must  de- 
pend upon  capitalist  bench  and  bar  for  a  construction 
of  the  law.  Under  such  circumstances,  the  master- 
class is  fighting  with  machine  guns,  while  we  are  armed 
with  clubs  and  javeline.  Lacking  our  own  law-corps, 
we  enter  battle  with  bound  hands. 

The  members  of  the  working  class,  arousing  as 
they  are  from  sea  to  sea,  must  themselves  become  the 
guardians  not  only  of  their  party,  but  of  the  coming 
state.  Our  legal  machinery  cannot  be  mended;  it  must 
be  thrown  on  the  junk-pile,  along  with  the  entire  capi- 
talist system. 

In  the  coming  Socialist  state,  the  people  will  make 
the  laws,  and  once  madie,  they  will  stand  until  the  ma- 
jority repeals  them  and  makes  others  in  their  stead. 

Socialists  must  fight  the  battle,  and  fight  it  hard 
and  square.     They  must  realize,  once  for  all,  that  the 

44 


master-class  is  determined  to  hold  its  ground  by  all 
means,  fair  or  foul,  legal  or  illegal;  and  in  the  ap- 
proaching battle,  they  must  be  prepared  to  meet  vio- 
lence with  law,  illegality  with  legality,  fraud  with  ex- 
posure, and  anarchy  with  order. 

Some  may  question  the  truth  of  our  position;  but 
I  affirm,  and  shall  offer  proofs,  that  Capitalism  today 
neither  respects  its  own  laws  nor — if  threatened^- 
obeys  them.  Its  reverence  for  law  is  the  merest  sim- 
ulacrum. At  all  hazards  it  is  bound  to  rule;  by  law, 
if  possible,  if  not,  then  by  force.  Prod  the  beast,  and 
in  its  rage  it  tears  to  shreds  the  fabric  of  the  very  law 
under  which  it  seeks  to  lie  sheltered. 

Every  free-speech  and  free-press  fight,  every  illegal 
jailing  of  editors  and  publishers  of  Socialist  or  labor 
papers,  every  "seditious  libel"  case,  every  capitalist  de- 
portation of  wojrkers,  every  military  "Cossack"  or 
mine-guard  outrage,  every  "bull-pen"  abomination,  ev- 
ery illegal  sentence,  every  judicial  murder,  every  polit- 
ical refugee  case,  every  act  of  mob-violence  on  the  part 
of  the  mastersi — and  these  are  legion — every  disfran- 
chisement, every  petty  theft  of  the  workers'  miserable 
property,  every  drop  of  proletarian  blood  shed  on  the 
industrial  field  or  in  rebellion  against  the  Hell  of  capi- 
talist exploitation,  calls  for  instant  action  on  the  part 
of  Socialist  lawyers.  Every  threat,  every  anarchistic 
utterance  on  the  part  of  Respectability  calls  for  action, 
and  at  once,  and  with  terrible  urgency ! 

The  plutocracy  begins  to  perceive  something  of 
the  trend  of  events,  and  calls  on  Congress  to  enact  a 

45 


Dick  Military  bill,  providing  that  every  citizen  between 
1  8  and  45  may  be  called  to  arms  and  must  respond,  on 
pain  of  death.  Congress  compliantly  obeys.  Or, 
alarmed  at  the  rapid  spread  of  the  Socialist  press,  it 
tries  to  pass  a  Penrose  bill,  providing  that: 

"When  any  issue  of  any  periodical  has  been  de- 
clared non-mailable  by  the  post  office  department,  the 
periodical  may  be  declared!  non-mailable  and  excluded 
from  second-class  mail  privileges  at  the  direction  of 
the  postmaster  general." 

This  neat  press-muzzier  fails  to  carry  only  because 
the  Socialists  take  up  the  gage  of  battle  and  raise  so 
threatening  a  storm-cloud  that  the  alarmed  "represen- 
tatives of  the  people"  run  to  cover. 

An  Otis  feels  his  power  slipping  from  him. 
Through  his  infamous  "Times"  (Nov.  2,  1911),  he 
threatens:  "And  soon — it  has  begun  to  happen  al- 
ready— the  plain  citizens  of  the  country  will  form  a 
combine.  Its  object  will  be  the  suppression  of  sedition 
and  anarchy  in  the  persons  of  the  professional  agitat- 
ors. Theirs  will  be  a  big,  powerful,  effective  but  very 
unostentatious  revolt.  It  will  work  quickly,  surely, 
silently.  .  The  first  thing  the  plain  citizen  combine  will 
accomplish  will  be  the  quiet  removal  of  these  gentle- 
men. They  won't  be  blown  up;  they  will  just  quietly 
disappear  from  human  ken.  There  will  be  a  little  in- 
quiry at  first,  but  it  will  die  doWn  ever  so  quickly.  .  .  . 
With  the  itch  removed!,  the  great  disease  of  unrest  will 
soon  be  cured,  and  the  world  will  settle  down  for  an- 
other half-century."  ;. 

The  New  York  "Journal  of  Commerce,"  the 
mouthpiece,  of  the  largest  capitalist  interests  in  the 
country,   sees   the  handwriting  on   the   wall,   and.  with 

46 


utter  disregard!  of  existing  law,  urges  a  speedy  move 
to  disfranchise  the  working-class.  The  dike  must  be 
raised,  forsooth,  lest  the  floods  of  democracy  invade 
the  rich  fields  of  special  privilege.  Well  the  masters 
know  their  last  bulwark  and  citadel,  the  law,  the  courts, 
the  judges ! 

Said  the  Journal,  March  16,  1907: 

"To  guard  against  an  eventuality,  we  should  enact 
preventive  laws  before  the  power  to  do  so  has  passed 
out  of  our  hands.  We  should  make  it  impossible  to 
destroy  the  constitutional  safeguards  thrown  around 
property-holders.  If  the  Constitution  could  be  so 
amended  that  its  provisions  relating  to  the  right  of  the 
owner  to  his  property  could  not  be  changed  except  by 
the  vote  of  nine-tenths  of  all  qualified  electors,  and  if 
at  the  same  time  the  expropriation  laws  were  well  de- 
fined and  limited  and  the  taxing  power  placed  under 
reasonable  restrictions,  we  should  feel  assured  that 
we  were  reasonably  well  defended  against  the  on- 
slaughts of  Socialism." 

Less  judicial  in  tone,  yet  in  essence  meaning  the 
same  thing,  the  Goldfield  Gossip  said,  in  January, 
1908,  at  the  time  of  the  strike: 

"It  would  have  been  better,  perhaps,  to  have  taken 
these  men  (union  men)  and  hanged  them  as  a  warning 
to  labor  to  content  itself  with  talking,  hereafter,  and 
avoid  action.  ...  A  cheaper  and  more  satisfactory 
method  of  dealing  with  this  labor  trouble  in  Goldfield 
.  .  .  would  have  been  to  have  taken  half  a  dozen  of  the 
Socialist  leaders  in  the  miners'  union  and!  hanged  them 
all  to  telegraph  poles. 

"Speaking  dispassionately  and  without  animus,  it 
seems  clear  to  us  after  many  months  of  reflection  that 
you  couldn't  make  a  mistake  in  hanging  a  Socialist.  He 
is  always  better  dead Always  hang  a  Socialist, 

47 


not  because  he  is  a  deep  thinker,  but  because  he  is  a 
bad  actor." 

Anarchy,  cruelty  and  vice  inconceivable,  under  the 
guise  and  mask  of  law,  exist  in  a  federal  penitentiary. 
A  Socialist  editor  and  a  Socialist  lawyer  take  the  matter 
in  hand!,  turn  on  the  light,  force  a  government  investi- 
gation, and  effectually  cleanse  the  Augean  stables.  The 
Leavenworth  exposure,  the  retirement  of  Warden  Mc- 
Laughry  and  the  dismissal  of  Deputy  Lemon  are  all 
matters  of  easily-accessible  record. 

To  save  myself  from  any  charge  of  having  exag- 
gerated the  Capitalist  viewpoint  and  its  inherent  law- 
lessness, if  property  rights  be  threatened,  and  to  point 
out  still  more  strongly  the  urgent  necessity  of  a  well- 
trained  Socialist  legal  corps  to  meet  that  lawlessness,  I 
quote  a  few  choice  gems  from  capitalist  literature, 
with  book,  chapter  and  verse : 

"Quitting  work  is  criminal." — Taft,  circuit  judge, 
54  Fed.  Rep.  730,  1893. 

"The  people  are  not  the  source  of  power."  Ency- 
cical. — Pope  Pius  IX. 

"Undesirable  citizens.  Mover,  Haywood,  Petti- 
bone." — Theodore  Roosevelt. 

"What's  the  constitution  between  friends?" — Tim- 
othy Campbell  of  Tammany  Hall. 

"To  hell  with  the  people !  What  do  I  care  for  the 
people?" — Governor  Gooding,  Idaho. 

"The  Catholic  church  and  the  courts  are  the  bul- 
warks between  the  mob  and  property." — Mark  Hanna. 

"Habeas  corpus  be  damned!  We'll  give  them  post- 
mortems instead!" — Adj.  Gen.  Sherman  Bell  of  Colo- 
rado militia. 

What  should  a  man  do  who  is  hungry  and  out  of 
work?  "God  knows,  I  don't." — Wm.  H.  Taft,  Coop- 
er Union  speech. 

48 


"The  damn  fools  don't  know  what  is  good  for 
them." — J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  speaking  of  the  striking 
steel  workers  in  September,   1901. 

"The  supreme  court  stands  next  to  divine  author- 
ity as  the  rule  of  justice  and  right." — J.  P.  Morgan's 
personal  newspaper,  the  Sun. 

"Men  who  object  to  what  they  style  'government 
by  injunction'  are  not  in  sympathy  with  men  of  good 
minds  and  good  civic  morality." — Theodore  Roose- 
velt. 

"The  club  is  mightier  than  the  constitution." — In- 
spector Schmittberger,  of  the  New  York  police  force 
in  the  riot  in  Union  Square  on  March  28,  1908. 

"To  hell  with  the  constitution!"  Major  McClel- 
land, commanding  the  state  militia  (paid  by  the  mine 
owners'  association)  during  the  Colorado  miners' 
strike  and  lockout  in  1904. 

"The  public  be  damned.  I  am  not  running  this 
road  for  the  benefit  of  the  public.  I  am  running  it  for 
my  own  benefit." — Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  of  New  York 
Central  railroad. 

"I  see  no  solution  for  the  problem  until  hunger 
compels  capitulation." — Charles  L.  Eiditz,  president 
of  New  York  Trades  Employer's  association,  during 
the  lockout  in  July,  1903. 

"I  acknowledge  no  civil  power.  I  claim  to  be  su- 
preme judge  and  director  of  the  consciences  of  men.  I 
am  sole,  last  supreme  judge  of  what  is  right  and  what 
is  wrong." — Cardinal  Manning. 

"In  a  Republican  district,  I  am  a  Republican.  In  a 
Democratic  district,  a  Democrat.  In  a  doubtful  district, 
I  am  doubtful.  But  first,  last  and  all  the  time  I  am  for 
the  Erie  railroad." — Jay  Gould. 

49 


"The  rights  and  interests  of  the  laboring  man  will 
be  protected  and  cared  for,  not  only  by  labor  agitators, 
but  by  the  Christian  men  to  whom  God,  in  His  infinite 
wisdom,  has  given  control  of  the  property  interests  of 
the  country." — George  M.  Baer,  mine  owner. 

"The  right  of  property  rests  not  upon  philosoph- 
ical or  scientific  speculation  or  upon  the  commendable 
impulses  of  benevolence  or  charity  nor  yet  upon  the  dic- 
tates of  natural  justice." — From  the  decision  of  the 
New  York  court  of  Appeals  on  Workingmen's  Com- 
pensation. This  court  held  the  common  law  assump- 
tion to  be  that  the  worker  assumes  the  risk  of  his  em- 
ployment, thereby  blocking  workingmen's  compensa- 
tion laws. 

Why  Socialists  Should  Study  Law. 

In  view  of  statements  such  as  these — and  the  list 
could  be  indefinitely  lengthened — and  also  with  due 
consideration  for  the  trend!  of  past  and  present  events, 
no  Socialist  can  deny  that  we  stand  today  confronted 
by  an  urgent  need  of  Socialist  lawyers,  legislators  and 
judges.  We  have,  at  present,  only  a  mere  sprinkling 
of  such  men,  a  mere  drop  in  the  capitalist  bucket.  In 
all  right  and  justice  there  should  be  more  Socialist  and 
working-class  lawyers  than  all  others  combined,  for 
they  would  represent  a  class  which  far  outnumbers  all 
other  classes.  Practicing  before  our  bar,  and  sitting 
on  our  bench,  they  could  and  would  interpret  the  law 
in  accord  with  human  life  and  sympathy,  rather  than 
in  accord  with  cold  and  bloodless  property-rights. 

Law,  in  its  development  and  present  application, 
has  lagged  far  behind  the  march  of  events.     It  still 

50 


lingers  in  the  misty  past  of  centuries  dead  and  gone. 
Our  marital  and  ecclesiastical  laws  are  relics  of  Roman 
days.  Our  courts  are  ruled  by  masses  of  musty  pre- 
cedents, instead  of  by  reason,  right  and  justice.  Yet, 
even  so,  we  must  understand  and  use  the  law  as  it  is, 
before  transforming  it  into  what  it  should  be ;  and  on 
the  actual  ground  of  present-day  law  we  must  meet  the 
capitalist  class  and  beat  them  at  their  own  game.  Then, 
and  only  then,  can  we  simplify  and  modernize  our 
codes  and  so  metamorphize  them  that  they  shall  com- 
fort and  protect,  instead  of  crushing  and  oppressing 
Labor. 

We  are  being  governed  and  controlled  today  by 
the  rules  established  by  a  small  body  of  constitutional 
delegates  125  years  ago,  when  this  country  had  neither 
machinery,  manufacturing  nor  industrial  workmen. 
Capitalist-made  law  protects  and  safeguards  property 
to  a  point  where  it  is  almost  impossible  to  tax  it  or  to 
make  it  pay  for  the  damages  to  life  or  limb  which  re- 
sult in  the  course  of  its  exploitation.  Behind  the  im- 
posing fortress  of  law  Capitalism  rules  supreme. 

The  popular  mind  is  today  filled  with  fear,  sus- 
picion and  hatred  of  the  law  and  lawyers,  of  courts  and 
judges.  Under  Socialism,  if  it  be  what  we  believe  it 
will  be,  a  wholly  different  character  will  pervade  the 
profession,  and  the  world  will  love,  honor  and  respect 
it  as  the  guardian  of  our  liberties.  One  thing  is  cer- 
tain; sooner  or  later  we  Socialists  are  going  to  take 
charge  of  this  government.  As  a  safeguard  of  peace 
and  a  guarantee  of  a  quiet,  legal,  orderly  change  of 

51 


administration,  we  must  educate  a  sufficient  number  of 
our  own  members,  in  the  law,  and  do  it  by  peaceful  and 
lawful  means. 

With  legal  power  in  our  hands,  we  can  make  a 
fact  of  democracy  and  of  our  Republic,  in  place  of  the 
specious,  false  and  deceptive  appearance  of  popular 
rule  which  has  till  now  masked  the  reality  of  govern- 
ment by  Gold.  If  majority  rule  is  right,  is  it  then  just 
for  a  minority,  composed  of  a  few  judges,  to  defeat 
the  will  of  the  majority?  Capitalism  could  not  stand 
an  hour  if  the  minority  did  not  rule  today.  As  the 
capitalist  class  is  in  the  minority,  so  it  must  have  some 
means  of  controlling  the  people,  and  that  control  is 
exercised  through  the  courts.  Our  law-making  system 
is  wholly  in  violence  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, and  to  the  provisions  of  the  latter  document  the 
Socialists  will  rigidly  adhere. 

The  simplest  constitution  is  the  best;  the  least  com- 
plicated machinery  of  organization  the  most  effective. 
The  working  class,  with  all  whose  material  interest  are 
kindfered,  has  no  complaint  against  the  lawyer  as  an  in- 
dividual, but  of  lawyers  as  a  class  they  are  rightly  dis- 
trustful. 

Once  we  establish  Socialist  lawyers  as  a  class,  work- 
ing with  and  in  sympathy  with  the  interests  of  the  pro- 
letariat, the  present  hostility  toward  the  profession 
will  cease,  and  confidence  will  replace  an  only  too  just 
suspicion. 

Socialists,  clear-visioned  and  firmly  grounded  in 
fact,  constitute  the  only  class  sufficiently  intelligent,  co- 

52 


herent  and  determined  to  offer  any  effective  resistance 
to  judicial  tyranny,  or  to  formulate  any  remedial  meas- 
ures. Our  propaganda  is  swiftly  spreading,  and  power 
is  coming  to  our  hands.  In  municipalities,  counties, 
states,*  and  in  the  nation,  we  need  legal  skill  to  guide 
us  in  the  impending  work  of  social  administration. 
Capitalism  foresees  the  issue,  and  is  already  at  work 
raising  the  standards  of  admission  to  the  bar.  Many 
states  have  already  enacted  requirements  practically 
prohibiting  members  of  the  working  class  from  prac- 
ticing law — some  requirements  even  demanding  a  col- 
lege degree  as  a  prime  requisite  for  admission  to  the 
bar.  These  barriers  must  be  attacked  and  broken 
down,  if  the  working  class  is  ever  to  take  any  hand, 
save  by  the  proxy  of  capitalist  lawyers  and  adminis- 
trators, in  the  making  and  enforcing  of  the  law. 

The  Call  to  Action. 

Most  of  the  majesty  and  dignity  of  the  law  is  mere 
poppycock,  gendered  by  the  purposeful  aloofness,  the 
"thunderings  out  of  Sinai,"  of  the  ruling  class  and  its 
legal  retainers.  Law  is  today,  in  fact,  merely  a  code 
of  haphazard  guesses,  backed  by  mystery  and  prece- 
dent. It  should  be  in  working  class  hands,  and  should 
be  as  simple  as  the  Ten  Commandments.  Concerning 
these,  no  differences  of  opinion  exist.  They  are  plain, 
simple  and  explicit;  and  he  who  runs  may  read  them. 

So  might  the  law  be.  So  must  it  be,  ere  justice 
shall  be  done.  The  purposeful  scheming  of  the  prop- 
ertied classes,  to  keep  the  making  and  administration 

S3 


of  the  law  in  its  own  hands,  must  be  met  by  the  work- 
ing class  itself  breaking  into  this  profession  in  consid- 
erable numbers.  Nor  is  it  an  impossible  task,  thus  to 
unlock  the  postern  of  Capitalism  and  let  the  army  of 
the  workers  enter  into  the  citadel  of  power.  Any  man 
or  woman  of  average  intelligence,  able  to  read  and 
write  the  English  language,  can  learn  the  essentials  of 
the  subject  in  no  very  great  time. 

Patrick  Henry,  the  revolutionary  orator,  Henry 
Clay,  "the  mill-boy  of  the  slashes,"  and  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, the  Illinois  rail-splitter,  all  serve  as  eminent  ex- 
amples of  men  who  made  a  marked  success  in  the  legal 
profession,  in  spite  of  having  lacked  every  opportunity 
for  an  education,  save  such  as  they  created  for  them- 
selves. What  these  men  did,  others  can  do.  And  the 
spirit  of  the  times  calls  loudly  for  action.  It  is  the 
urgent  duty  of  every  Socialist  to  prepare  himself  for 
the  oncoming  charge. 

Let  me  now  recapitulate  and  summarize  the  situa- 
tion, once  for  all,  and!  make  it  as  clear  as  type  and 
paper  can.  Under  a  class  government  like  ours,  where 
every  weapon  available  must  be  seized  by  the  workers 
in  their  effort  at  self-emancipation,  the  study  and  prac- 
tice of  law  becomes  a  matter  of  extreme  importance. 
In  practically  every  relation  existing  between  the  capi- 
talist class  and  the  working  class,  the  issue  of  law  is 
injected,  and  almost  without  exception  the  balance  of 
power  remains  with  the  masters.  Law  and  administra- 
tion form  today  the  strongest  bulwark  of  class  rule.  So 
long  as  law  remains  "the  mystery  and  possession  of  a 

54 


class,  and  not  the  heritage  of  all  mankind,"  the  work- 
ers will  continue  to  find  themselves  at  a  tremendous  dis- 
advantage if  they  neglect  to  train  members  from  their 
own  ranks  to  function  as  lawyers  and!  judges. 

The  necessity  for  Socialist  lawyers  arises  constant- 
ly. In  every  election  where  the  game  of  disfranchise- 
ment or  ballot-stealing  is  attempted  by  the  master  class, 
working  class  attorneys  are  urgently  needed.  In  every 
accident  case  where  just  compensation  is  evaded  by 
black-robed  capitalist-kept  judges,  the  worker's  inter- 
est must  be  defended  by  a  Socialist  lawyer.  Contests 
for  office,  when  Socialists  are  elected,  and  harrassing 
obstructionist  tactics  by  capitalist  opposition  must  be 
met  and  can  only  be  met  by  the  vigorous  action  of  well- 
informed  thoroughly  qualified  Socialist  attorneys. 

Every  free-speech  fight  demands  similar  action.  In 
rural  districts,  the  defense  of  homestead  titles,  of  pen- 
sions, patents  and  similar  rights  and  privileges  calls 
urgently  for  the  services  of  lawyers  working  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  Socialist  viewpoint.  The  proletariat, 
urban  and  rural  alike,  needs  a  corps  of  Socialist  experts 
to  explain,  unravel  and  interpret  for  them  the  antiquat- 
ed and  bewildering  legal  complications  which  involve 
every  personal  and  property  right. 

In  the  battle  today  being  waged  between  the  con- 
tending classes  of  society,  the  one  supremely  powerful 
weapon  is  the  function  of  making,  interpreting  and  en- 
forcing the  law.  Beside  this  power,  all  others  sink  into 
insignificance.  "Direct  action"  with  its  strikes  and  tur- 
bulence,   becomes    puerile    by    comparison.     Political 


55 


power,  if  it  does  not  include  the  control  of  the  courts, 
grows  impotent.  Government  today  is  being  carried 
on  by  the  capitalist  class  with  the  lawyer,  the  legislator 
and  the  judge  as  its  tools.  We  have  a  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  lawyers,  for  the  trusts.  Only  a  blind 
man  can  fail  to  see  the  vital  importance  of  Socialists 
themselves  taking  possession  of  this  all-controlling 
power,  the  law. 

The  legislator  and  the  judge  have  today  replaced 
the  soldier  and  the  priest  as  controlling  forces  in  so- 
ciety. They  constitute  capitalism's  ultimate  bulwark 
against  the  encroachments  of  Socialism.  Class  rule 
could  not  continue  an  hour  without  the  gowned  aloof- 
ness of  the  courts.  "Let  me  name  the  judges  and  I 
care  not  who  rebels"  might  form  an  appropriate  motto 
for  the  capitalist  system. 

These  facts  are  so  obviously  patent  to  all  Socialists 
that  none  should  fail  to  heed  the  corollary:  If  we  are 
ever  to  assume  effective  control  of  society,  it  must  be 
through  attaining  control  of  the  legal  machinery  of  the 
land.  Our  own  ranks  contain  little  skill  or  talent  along 
these  lines.  When  we  elect  officials,  we  must  for  the 
most  part  employ  capitalist  lawyers  to  draft  our  bills 
and  to  conduct  the  complex  process  of  legal  procedure. 
Lacking  lawyers  and  judges  inspired  by  our  ideals  and 
dominated  by  our  viewpoint,  we  run  the  risk  of  be- 
trayal on  every  hand.  We  are  enjoined,  harassed  and 
rendered  impotent  by  the  legal  tools  of  capitalism;  and 
as  yet  we  possess  neither  skill  nor  technical  knowledge 
to  combat  and  overcome  this  sinister  force. 


56 


The  working  class  needs  men  competent  to  practice 
in  every  court  and  to  sit  on  every  judicial  bench,  from 
the  lowest  to  the  highest.  We  urgently  must  have  hun- 
dreds and  thousands  of  trained  legal  minds  to  take  up 
and  carry  on  the  impending  burdens  of  government  and 
administration.  Without  this  force,  Socialism  is  mere- 
ly riding  to  a  fall.  It  cannot  rule;  it  cannot  hold  such 
ground  as  it  may  win.  Its  charge  over  the  barricade 
will  be  met  by  legal  fusillades  which  will  mow  it  down. 
For,  in  the  arsenal  of  power,  the  law  and  the  courts 
are  at  last  resort  the  rapid-fire  magazine  guns. 

Socialist  lawyers !  The  call  is  imperative,  the  need 
urgent.  For  already  the  hour  of  responsibility  is  ap- 
proaching. And  if  it  finds  us  unarmed  and  unprepared, 
victory  must  wither  to  defeat  and  the  long,  bitter  fight 
will  have  been  fought  in  vain. 

Socialists !  Take  up  the  weapon,  the  master- 
weapon  of  all,  the  law!  Bind  not  your  hands  in  sloth, 
nor  your  feet  in  futility.  Arm  yourselves — but  not 
with  weapons  of  destruction.  Let  the  law  be  your 
shield  and  buckler,  for  in  this  sign  shall  you  surely 
conquer. 

Remember  the  clarion-call  of  Debs:  "The  days 
before  us  invite  to  action  as  never  before.  The  field 
is  dazzlingly  attractive!"  Remember  again  the  words 
of  Warren,  when,  persecuted  and  harrassed,  he  faced 
his  black-gowned  judges : 

"Slowly,  painfully,  proceeds  the  struggle  of  man 
against  the  power  of  Mammon.  The  past  is  written 
in  tears  and  blood.     The  future  is  dim  and  unknown, 


57 


but  the  final  outcome  of  this  world-wide  struggle  is 
not  in  doubt.  Freedom  will  conquer  slavery,  truth 
will  prevail  over  error,  justice  will  triumph  over  in- 
justice, the  light  will  vanquish  the  darkness,  and  hu- 
manity, disenthralled,  will  rise  in  the  glory  of  universal 
brotherhood." 


Appendix. 

Being  a  Partial  List  of  Legal  Decisions  and  Injunc- 
tions in  Favor  of  Capital  and  Against  Labor. 

"Refusing  to  haul  cars  a  conspiracy." — T.,  A.  & 
N.  M.  Ry.  vs.  Pennsylvania  Co.,  54  Fed.  Rep.  730, 
April  3,  1893.     Taft,  circuit  judge. 

"Quitting  work  is  criminal." — Same,  April  3,  1893. 
Taft,  circuit  judge. 

"A  workman  considered  'under  control.'  " — T.,  A. 
&  N.  M.  Ry.  vs.  Pennsylvania  Co.  et  al.,  54  Fed.  Rep., 
746,  March  25,  1893.     Ricks,  circuit  judge. 

"Serving  of  injunction  notice  unnecessary." — In  re 
Lennon,  166  U.  S.,  548.     Brown,  judge. 

"The  black-list  lawful."— N.  Y.,  C.  &  St.  L.  Ry. 
Co.  vs.  Schaffer,  65  Ohio,  41b,  Jan.  21,  1902. 

"Effort  to  unionize  shop  unlawful." — Lowe  et  al. 
vs.  Lawler  et  al.,  208  U.  S.,  274,  Feb.  3,  1908. 

"Contract  work  to  union  house  is  void." — State  vs. 
Toole,  26  Mont,  22. 

"Constitutional  to  require  men  to  leave  union." — 
People  vs.  Harrv  Marcus,  185  N.  Y.,  257,  .May  25, 
1906. 

"Union  labor  has  no  right  to  conduct  a  strike." — 
Alfred  W.  Booth  &  Co.  vs,  Burgess  et  al.,  65  Atlantic 
Reporter,  226,  Nov.  26,  1906. 


"Unlawful  to  induce  non-union  men  to  quit  work." 
— Enterprise  Foundry  Co.  vs.  Iron  Moulders'  union, 
112  N.  W.,  685,  July  1,  1907. 

"The  unfair  list  forbidden."— Wilson  et  al.,  332 
111.,  389,  Feb.  20,  1908. 

"Employer  has  right  to  bar  out  unions." — Flaccus 
vs.  Smith,  199  Pa.  St.,  128. 

"Anti-Trust  Act  applies  to  Labor  Unions  as  well 
as  to  combinations  of  capitalists." — U.  S.  vs.  Working- 
men's  Amalgamated  Council,  54  Fed.  Rep.  994;  Loewe 
vs.  Lawlor,  208  U.  S.,  274. 

"The  boycott  is  unlawful." — Loewe  vs.  Lawlor, 
208  U.  S.,  274. 

"Members  of  Labor  Unions  liable  to  threefold 
damages  for  injuries  in  business  or  property  sustained 
by  individuals  or  firms  by  reason  of  a  boycott." — 
Loewe  vs.  Lawlor,  208  U.  S.,  274. 

"A  combination  of  men  to  secure  or  compel  the 
employment  of  none  but  union  men  is  unlawful." — U. 
S.  vs.  Workingmen's  Amalgamated  Council,  54  Fed. 
Rep.  994. 

''Unlawful  to  threaten  a  strike." — John  O'Brien  vs. 
People  ex  rel.  Kellogg  Switchboard  &  Supply  Co.,  216 
111.,  354,  June  23,  1905. 

"Effort  to  unionize  a  house  is  unlawful." — J.  L. 
Purvis  et  al.  Local  No.  500  U.  B.  of  Carpenters  and 
Joiners,  214  Pa.  St.,  348,  March  19,  1906. 

"The  boycott  is  unlawful." — Shine  et  al.  vs.  Fox 
Bros.  Mfg.  Co.,  156  Fed.  Red.  357,  Oct.  19,  1907. 

"Unions  liable  to  suit  for  damages." — Leucke  vs. 
Clothing  Cutters'  &  Trimmers'  Assembly,  77  Md., 
396,  Madch  16,  1893. 

59 


"The  closed  shop  is  illegal." — A.  R.  Barnes  & 
Co.  et  al.  vs.  Berry  et  al.,  156  Fed.  Rep.,  72,  Oct.  21, 
1907. 

"Unlawful  to  ask  reasons  for  discharge." — Wal- 
lace vs.  Georgia,  Carolina  &  Northern  Ry.  Co.,  94 
Ga.,  732,  June  18,  1894. 

"Blacklisting  cannot  be  prohibited." — Wisconsin 
ex  rel.  Theodore  Zillner  vs.  Louis  Kreutzberg,  58  L. 
R.  A.,  748,  May  9,  1902. 

"Maintaining  a  picket  is  unlawful." — A.,  T.  &  S. 
F.  Ry.  Co.  vs.  Gee  et  al.,  139  Fed.  Rep.  July  10,  1905. 

"Cannot  limit  hours  of  labor  by  law." — Holden  vs. 
Hardy,  169  U.  S.,  366,  Feb.  28,  1898. 

".Payment  in  checks  legal." — Kentucky  court  of  ap- 
peals, Avent-Beattyville  Coal  Co.,  Appt.  vs.  Common- 
wealth of  Kentucky,  Dec.  1,  1894. 

"Employer  has  a  right  to  discharge  a  union  man." 
— Wisconsin  supreme  court,  State  of  Wisconsin  ex  rel. 
Theodore  Zillner,  Plff.  in  error,  vs.  Louis  J.  Kreutz- 
berg, 58  L.  R.  A.,  748,  May  19,  1902. 

"Eight-hour  day  unconstitutional." — Nebraska  su- 
preme court,  Charles  G.  Low,  Plff.  in  error,  vs.  Rees 
Printing  Co.,  24  L.  R.  A.,  702-708. 

"Eight-hour  law  illegal." — Ohio  supreme  court, 
City  of  Cleveland,  Plff.  vs.  Clements  Bros.  Construc- 
tion Co.,  59  L.  R.  A,,  775. 

"Protection  of  laborers  illegal." — Colorado  su- 
preme court — Re  Thomas  A.  Morgan,  47  L.  R.  A., 
52,  July  17,  1899.  - 

"Limiting  check  payment  unconstitutional." — Indi- 
ana supreme  court,  Nathan  G.  Dixon,  Appt.,  vs.  James 
H.  Poe,  60  L.  R.  A.,  308,  Nov.  25,  1902. 

60 


"Unlawful  to  fix  wages  by  law." — New  York  su- 
preme Court,  People  ex  rel.  Wm.  J.  Rodgers,  Respt., 
vs.  Bird  S.  Coler,  Appt.,  166  N.  Y.,  52  L.  R.  A.  814. 

"Protection  of  laborer  not  required." — New  York 
court  of  Appeals,  Sarah  Knisley,  Respt.,  vs.  Pascal  P. 
Pratt  et  al.,  Appts.,  148  N.  Y.,  362;  32  L.  R.  A.,  367. 

"No  extra  pay  for  extra  hours." — New  York  court 
of  appeals,  People,  Respt'.,  vs.  James  H.  Phyfe,  Appt., 
Jan.  17,  1893. 

"Employer  not  responsible  for  death  of  employe." 
— Circuit  court  of  appeals,  eighth  circuit,  March  19, 
1900.  Westland  vs.  Gold  Coin  Mines  Co.,  101  Fed. 
Rep.,  59,  64,  6S  and  66. 

"Labor  check  payments  are  legal." — Massachusetts 
supreme  judicial  court.  Commonwealth  of  Massachu- 
setts vs.  Josiah  Perry.  14  L.  R.  A.,  326. 

"No  remedy  for  labor  except  personal  suit" — Mas- 
sachusetts supreme  court.  Dianah  Worthington  et  al., 
Appts.,  vs.  James  Warring  et  al.,  157  Mass.,  421. 

"Employers  need  not  furnish  doctor  to  injured." — 
Massachusetts  supreme  judicial  court.  Alexander  Da- 
vis by  next  friend  vs.  William  H.  Forbes,  171  Mass., 
548. 

"Employers  not  liable  for  injuries." — Massachu- 
setts supreme  court.  Wm.  O'Mally  vs.  South  Boston 
Gaslight  Co.,  158  Mass.,  135. 

"Altering  contract  is  legal  for  employers." — Illi- 
nois supreme  court.  Richard  Ptmsey,  Appt.,  vs.  Peo- 
ple of  Illinois,  17  fer  R.  A.,  853. 

"Employers  need  not  recommend  satisfactory  em- 
ployes."— Illinois  supreme  court.  C,  C,  C.  &  L.  Ry. 
Co.,  Appt.,  vs.  Charles  Jenkins,  174  111.,  398. 

61 


"Legal  to  jail  a  man  a  month  without  trial." — Ore- 
gon supreme  court.  Longshore  Printing  &  Publishing 
Co.,  Appt,  vs.  George  H.  Howell  et  al.,  26  Ore.,  527. 

"The  right  to  blacklist  upheld." — Kentucky  court 
of  appeals.  John  Hundley,  Appt.,  vs.  L.  &  N.  Ry. 
Co.,  105  Ky.,  162. 

"Any  wilful  attempt  of  employes  of  a  railroad  in 
the  hands  of  a  receiver  to  impede  or  hinder  the  opera- 
tion of  the  road  is  contempt  of  court." — Thomas  vs. 
C.  N.  O.  &  T.  P.  Ry.  Co.,  62  Fed.  Rep.  803,  Taft, 
circuit  judge. 

"To  instigate  a  strike  on  a  road  in  the  hands  of  a 
receiver  is  unlawful  and  a  contempt  of  court."- — Thom- 
as vs.  C.  N.  O.  &  T.  P.  Ry.  Co.,  62  Fed.  Rep.  803, 
Taft,  circuit  judge. 

"A  boycott  is  an  unlawful  conspiracy." — Thomas 
vs.  C.  N.  O.  &.  T.  P.  Ry.  Co.,  62  Fed.  Rep.  803,  Taft, 
circuit  judge. 

"A  sympathetic  strike  is  an  unlawful  conspiracy  by 
reason  of  its  purpose,  whether  such  purpose  is  effected 
by  means  usually  lawful  or  otherwise." — Thomas  vs. 
C.  N.  O.  &  T.  P.  Ry.  Co.,  62  Fed.  Rep.  803,  Taft, 
circuit  judge. 

"Any  obstructing  or  retarding  the  mails  by  strikes 
is  an  unlawful  conspiracy  in  violation  of  Section  3975, 
Revised  Statutes,  although  the  obstruction  is  effected 
by  merely  quitting  employment." — Thomas  vs.  C.  N. 
O.  &  T.-P.  Ry.  Co.,  62  Fed.  Rep.  803,  Taft,  circuit 
judge. 

"A  law  forbidding  discrimination  against  an  em- 
ploye because,  of  his  membership  in  a  labor  union,  and 
making  it  a  misdemeanor  for  an  employer  to  discharge 
an  employe  because  of  membership  in  a  labor  union,  is 
unconstitutional." — Adair  case,  208  U.  S.  161. 

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